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And also just to think, the moment you have access to the shops in Darakin, you can (slowly) gain infinite money. It gets a bit better for selling swords some time later in the game, but I'd have to find my note card about that one from over a decade ago. If you had no plans for it, I can go over it in a spoiler.
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Apr 16, 2021 04:55
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Magic Fanatic posted:And also just to think, the moment you have access to the shops in Darakin, you can (slowly) gain infinite money. Hmm, why not? You have my blessing to detail this infinite money trick. The only ones I know of take place far later in the game.
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Apr 16, 2021 05:37
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LJN92 posted:Hmm, why not? You have my blessing to detail this infinite money trick. Requirements: 1080 G. Step 1: Buy a Padded Jacket from Nohl Step 2: Buy a Noth Rock, Zuvel Fur, Izumo Bronze, and Alma Iron Ore from the Junk Shop, and a Gorum Hemp Cloth from the Accessory Shop, all in Darakin. Step 3: Combine the Padded Jacket with a Noth Rock to make a Leather Chest. Step 4: Combine the Leather Chest with the Zuvel Fur, Izumo Bronze, Alma Iron Ore, and Gorum Hemp Cloth to make a Gorgeous Jacket. Step 5: Profit by 820 G by selling the Gorgeous Jacket. Multiply by however much your patience keeps letting you make Gorgeous Jackets. There's better ways to make money as you get further into the game, but we aren't close to the next tier up. However, I was someone that waited until after this next dungeon to do it myself, just for the feature that was unlocked.
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Apr 16, 2021 06:23
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Chapter 6 – In the Hall of the Mountain Morg Last time, we met Kazan, who tasked us with reaching the summit of Mt. Gabel and dying against the Mountain Morg. No, really.  Once we exit the gate, we’re put on the narrow path to facing our death at the hands of the Morg. But what if we just turn around and go back?  Kazan offers to use his shack as a place to rest and heal. As we can’t actually leave Mt. Gabel until we’re done, this is the only place to do so.  Maya’s inside the shack, doing nothing significant. There’s nothing else to do but rest, so we go back outside… Now Playing – Already Rented   “If you’re ever in need, just let me know! I just know I’ll be able to help you out!” “All for a modest fee of course! Ha ha ha ha!” “So, Kazan, when do you think you’ll be ready to…?” “Don’t you ever give up? I’ve already said no.” “Rejection is all part of sales, my friend.” “I’m not leaving here today until you sell me that pot you like so much, Kazan!” “Hmph! Stay there all week if you want. I don’t care.”If it wasn’t obvious from the way he talks, Kenjiro is a travelling merchant. His function here is to let you buy items and combine stuff while you can’t leave the mountain. He will also be a significant character going forward, for more reasons than just showing up to sell things. Anyway, now that we’ve established our base camp, I think it’s time we actually climb Mt. Gabel.  Spike Lizards are the first enemies in a trend of foes that cause you to miss certain strikes due to their stature. Remember I mentioned that way back in Chapter 1? These things also introduce the “Venom” status effect. It’s like poison, but apparently you can’t recover HP while it affects a character. I say apparently because these things are too weak to actually warrant healing during their fights and the effect wears off after battle, so I never really knew it was a thing.  It’s incredibly easy to miss, but if you stand on a wee bit of land in this lake, you get to stare up at the summit of Mt. Gabel. If you squint, you can make out our quarry, waving at us (no, it’s not actually waving).  This is a palette swap of the Flytrap enemies from Hunter’s Wood. At least it’s a little longer ago than the Baki.  This is the entrance to the Mountain Morg’s Cave.  And this is the inside of the Mountain Morg’s Cave. The Japanese comes out as “Yama no Shu no Dokutsu”, or “Mountain Lord’s Cave”. I guess Mountain Lord is a bit nondescript, but what the heck is a Morg anyway?  We get a sense of how big it is from here. There’s no way it fit in that tiny cave. Did it drop in from above?  They say you are what you eat, and the Morg is an example of this.  If you hadn’t been playing a Cocky Lang so far, you’d get a different piece of dialogue here. No “Morgie” and more “GULP THIS SURE IS INTIMIDATING BUT I GOTTA DIE!”   Maybe we can take this thing. The game let us win a technical victory against Elliott and Marienne, remember?  Or it’s a repeat of Gold Eyes and you literally can’t hurt it.  Lang, Kazan made this very clear. You’re here to get beaten nearly to death.  The Morg has a handful of generic attacks that do a bit of damage, but nothing life threatening.  It’s when he does this that the end is nigh.   Not even guarding can save you from this wiping Lang out.        “Another power..lies within…me…”       Our Origin has awoken. We now have access to the “Origin” slot in our action menu.     It’s entirely possible to lose here. Morg won’t go down in a single Origin attack. When I was a kid, I think I severely underleveled for this segment, and couldn’t kill Morg with the amount of Origin attacks you can make here (2). But in this playthrough, 2 is enough to win. Click below to watch Lang awaken his Stand and defeat the Morg.  Now Playing – Going to My Hometown “Are you…Are you the Origin inside me?” “Yes. Galea’s the name. I am the Origin of Fire.” “If you had waited any longer to awaken me, you’d have been dead for sure!” Note Kazan has a sword on his belt. “Is that your Origin?” (Such power…! Who would have thought the kid had this kind of power inside of him…) “You’ve finally awoken the giant within, Lang..” “Is that why you brought me here, Maya?”  “Yes…I hoped that you would realize your potential as a Mystic.” “Your Origin may be awake, but you’re still a novice. You’ve got a lot to learn about fighting and Origins. Come with me.” Kazan finally joins our party. The two others walk out of the cave ahead of Lang.  “Hey, get a move on, will you? The master’s already leaving.” “Master?” “It’s better than calling him ‘pops’, don’t you think?” “If it weren’t for him, I never would have woken up and you’d probably be dead!”He means Kazan, of course.  Kazan joins at level 25 and is far stronger than Lang. He will make battles a lot easier from here on out. And speaking of battles….  We’re immediately ambushed outside the cave. Despite coming with a sword, Kazan fights with fist and foot. This means he never actually needs a weapon, so we don’t have to spend money and resources to improve his combat ability (outside of accessories and other items). Kazan comes with his own slew of Arts to perform. You know what that means! Click here to watch Kazan’s Art exhibition. Of course we now also have the ability to use Origin attacks with every party member. We could have used Maya’s this whole time, but I figured I’d save it until we had the whole gang. Click here for an exhibition of our first Origin attacks. (The reason why some of it is from different areas is because I needed to re-record for it. It also gives you a sneak peek of how the Forest Maze will go) In any case, the battle against these Stone Beasts is easily won, especially with Kazan in the group. Click below for to hear Kazan explain why he doesn’t use his sword.  “I’ve always preferred to use my fists.” “I can feel the battle with more clarity.” ”Only learned how to use a sword cause I needed two jobs, anyway. Doplin’s taxes were and are a bitch.” “A student?” “Yes. And in it thrives the spirit of my former student, Rauss…Which is why I must never ever lose it. For to lose it is to forget him.”Golly, I wonder if Rauss is ever going to be important to the game? The scene ends, and we begin our descent down Mt. Gabel. But halfway back to Kazan’s shack, he stops us.   “This is the Cave of Trials. I trained here in my younger days.” “At the very back of the cave, there is a scroll that reveals a secret sword technique. I want you to get that scroll.” “You want me to get a scroll?” “It may sound easy, but trust me, it’s not. This cave is filled with monsters.” “You won’t be able to get the scroll by yourself. You’re going to need the cooperation of your Origin.” “Stand over there.” Deva boosts us up to the entrance. “Origins can do things like this. I’m certain that your Origin has the power you’ll need to accomplish the task.” “Whether you make it through the caves alive or not depends on how you use your Origin.” “I’ll wait here with Maya. Good luck.”Once again alone, on our way into a new cave. Now Playing – Training Cave We don’t get far into the cave before we’re stopped.  “I wonder if Galea can do something about it?”The game now tells us we can use our Origin with a touch of the square button.  Galea breaks the boulder with one punch.  From outside “Hey La-ng!” “I don’t think you’re strong enough to make it through the cave by yourself yet.” ”Okay first, bullshit, second, you think Maya’s the solution?” ”Don’t answer back boy! Maya can heal you with Rivas!” ”Didn’t need her to take down a giant crab, a sexually suggestive gorilla, and the MIGHTIEST knight in Darakin, but okay, sure…”With Maya in the party, we can now cycle between characters to use different on-field Origin abilities. We can also run around in dungeon areas as other characters if we feel like it.  The Japanese means “Training Cave”, like the name of the song playing. I guess they felt it was a bit on the nose for English? The Cave of Trials is basically a big tutorial on how puzzles work in Legaia 2. Oh yes, we’re getting puzzles from here on out. They all involve using the various Origin powers at your disposal to get past obstacles and find optional treasures. We know Galea is used to break boulders and stuff, but Rivas has uses here too…  Rivas makes plants grow, for one. This lets us make a vine ladder to reach that chest up there. You can also see an odd patch of dirt. That one requires Deva, Kazan’s Origin. Yes, that means if we want to see where that leads, we need to come back here with him. There’s a lot of things in dungeons you need later characters to get to.  These are the enemies we fought in the last update, back at Kazan’s shack. They’re no more fearsome here than there. They can cause “Blindness”, a status effect that causes some attacks to “miss”. They don’t miss the way some directional attacks do and instead just cause no damage.  Dino Gol’s are the worst enemy here. They don’t do too much damage, but they can cause the “Beserk” status. In Legaia 2, that means your characters will attack randomly. Not only does this mean they probably won’t execute Arts, or will attack only once, they can also target allies, and here Lang can easily kill Maya. As for the puzzles, here’s a few of them…  Here all you have to do is break the rocks to step on a switch.  Here you just have to light a torch, then step on a switch.  Here, the tablet in the corner says “There is only one truth”. So I light one torch and the doors open. The Cave of Trials is a pretty banal dungeon overall. The puzzles aren’t even complex. All you have to do is use your Origin on a painfully obvious prompt and you will get through. I don’t think even children would struggle with these.  Once you get through all the puzzles, you get the scroll Kazan mentioned. This scroll teaches you a Hyper Art, which we first saw during Elliott and Marienne’s battle. Lang also got 5 Art Blocks as I traversed this cave. Time for another exhibition! Click here for Lang’s 5 Block Art Exhibition and his new Hyper Art. Hyper Arts are unlike other Arts because rather than performing a succession of strikes building up to one Art attack, they perform a predetermined attack in one go. Raging Fang takes up 3 Art Blocks, but does not perform two regular attacks and then another, but instead performs its own attack sequence. Fortunately, this is far more powerful than regular Art use, so the attacks aren’t wasted. As you can see in that video, Hyper Arts don’t have to be used alone. You can chain them with other Arts. All Arts can be chained together with the right sequence. Here, the sequence for Raging Fang is [up, down, up]. The sequence for Thunderflash is [down, up, up, up]. The first two parts of Thunderflash are contained in the last two parts of Raging Fang. Thus, by entering just two more [up]s, we perform both Raging Fang and Thunderflash. Hyper Arts take more AP than Super Arts to pull off, so chaining them with a regular Art helps offset the cost. Anyway, we’re quite done with the Cave of Trials.   “I told you to get the scroll. I didn’t say anything about reading it. Someone needs to learn some patience.”Kazan says this because we actually checked the scroll before leaving the cave. Although he acts like he’s admonishing us, nothing bad comes of this. “It’s a style of sword fighting that I mastered. It allows you to infuse your sword with your inner fighting force.” “Since you’ve already looked at the scroll, you know that it contains the secrets to a technique called ‘Raging Fang.’” “Like the smithy tempers steel, so too must you temper your mind. Devote yourself to mastering this technique.” “It looks like you’ve learned ‘Raging Fang’ quite well. In that case…You shouldn’t have any trouble learning more advanced techniques in the future.” “Okay, then. Let’s all head back to the house!”And so we head back to the house.  “Let’s see…It floats in the air…It’s very shiny and water comes out of it. Oh, and it’s a rock!” “A shiny rock that floats in mid-air and water comes out of it? You wouldn’t try to fool an old man now, would you?” ”Master, we have magical spirits living inside our bodies. Why does this sound so fantastic to you?” ”Ehhh….” “You know of it?” “Yes. When I was held captive in Doplin Castle, I remember the Bishop bragging about it.”Funny that Rivas says “I” when it was more Maya that was captured. I guess Rivas was stuck too, but does it count when you can just vanish into some spiritual void? “Doplin Castle…That’s where they locked me up! You’re sure that’s where it is?!” “Hmm…But why did Gold Eyes steal it from your village? What does he plan to do with it?” “If we find that stone, we might find Gold Eyes too…” “Master?” “Let me tell you something, Lang…” “But I can’t enjoy the sunset anymore. The eerie mist covering the mountain has made it impossible.” “In order to get back the mountain I love…I plan to fight this gold-eyed devil that’s disrupting the balance of things.” “You fight to protect your village…Maya and I to protect nature…” “We fight for different reasons, but our target’s the same. How about it, Lang?” “Master! Let’s go to Doplin Castle!” “We’ll leave right away.” “Yes. And I don’t think that I’ll be coming back.” “Thanks for all you’ve done for me over the years, Kenjiro.” “You wanted that pot, right? Take it. Take everything in the house. It’s all yours.” “Really?! You’re going to give me the pot?! Even the hanging scrolls?” “I won’t have any use for them where I’m going. Anything you think is valuable, you can buy…”But Kenjiro runs off before Kazan can finish. “Hmm…I was hoping to get some traveling money, but never mind. All right then, shall we go?” ”You know, we could just go tell him he’s not getting it all for free?” ”Too much effort.” This is plot relevant. But with Kenjiro pillaging Kazan’s shack, we are free to leave Mt. Gabel.  Oh whoops, we’re not actually done with the tutorials. Silly me.  “Oh well. We’ll rest here for tonight.” Now Playing – Paying the Worthless War (This is by far the goofiest name for a song that mostly plays around a campfire) Introducing the Camping/Cooking system. As it says, you can make camp at certain points, both in dungeons and on the world map. On the camping screen, you can access various functions, such as saving, combining items, and of course cooking. Cooking is as you would expect: you make dishes that are available to the party using the ingredients you need and have on hand. These dishes boost stats in different ways. You will learn a variety of different dishes through the game, and they all do different things. I must admit, however, that you’ll only find so many of them genuinely useful. Our only option in the tutorial is to make Kazan’s signature curry.  “….Kazan!....I’m crying, ‘cause my mouth is on fire!!!!” “Fool! It’s not curry if it hasn’t got a little spice!!”  “What’s the matter, Maya…?” “I guess it’s so hot, she doesn’t want to eat it, Kazan…” “That’s strange…I thought it was pretty good…” This is what Kazan Curry does to a person. Despite Lang and Maya hating it, this dish is very useful, and we’ll get a lot of mileage out of it. The final function of the campsites is to let you have the characters talk to each other. You typically get a few good conversations out of every new site you find. Here’s a selection of the ones we hear here: Kazan’s Past “Hey, tell me a little about your past!” “Hm…Let’s see…I…I was fighting all the time.” “I just wanted to test how strong I was…That’s all I wanted to know…” “I see.” “You’ve got to get out and try things while you’re young. Sitting around doing nothing is the worst!” “The worst thing is to regret not having done something.” “So, is there anything you regret not having done, then?” “Let’s see…I should have gone after even more ladies when I was young and handsome!” “I know I had what it took to attract the laies! But I…! I…!” (Looks like this is a major regret…)Kazan reminds me of someone. Can you guess who before I spell it out for you? Practice “Lang! You’ve been practicing the technique I taught you the other day, right?”This chat offers a choice of response. We can either say we don’t know what he means, tell him we use it in battle, or that we want to learn something new. We choose battle. “Sure, I use it during battles.” “I see. Using the skill in battle is better than simply practicing it.” “The day is coming when new skills will awaken within you. Keep at it, Lang.”Spicy Cooking “Why is Master’s cooking so spicy?” “Spicy? I held back on the spice for you…” “You held back on the spice?! How spicy is your REAL cooking?!” “That dish is nothing compared to the foods in my home town of Tanza.”Can you guess between Kazan’s voice acting and his spicy cooking what Tanza is based on? The Importance of Hygiene “Hm? What’s wrong, Maya? Why are you frowning?” “Have you ever washed your clothes before, Master?” “Of course! Near as I remember, I washed them a month ago…” “A month ago?!” “That’s right. Anything wrong?” “You might want to wash them more often. Look, Maya doesn’t like the fact that you smell!” “I see. I have lived alone for a long time. I completely forgot about it!”Origin Talk  “It depends…Some become aware when they are born. Some don’t realize it ‘till they die.” “As for me…I’m just like you. I felt mine during battle. WE fought together ever since.” “Kazan and I share a mutual existence. The death of Kazan’s soul means the same for my own…” “He’s more stubborn than I am. Simply put: if I die, so does Deva.” “So they’re between life and death…” “Correct. But even if we share destinies, our souls are separate. So communicate well with the Origin within yourself.”Mystic Hunting “A stone that gushes water, huh? And you absolutely HAVE to have it, you say?” “Yes, I’ve GOTTA have it! That’s the whole reason I left home!” “I see. Well, according to Rivas, it was taken into Doplin Castle.” “That castle again, huh…?” “What do you mean?” “Well, actually…that castle is where I met Maya in the first place.” “They were gathering up Mystics, and I got caught.” “I see. That must be how Maya got caught, too. Mystic hunting, huh? Pretty scary. It reminds me of a time long ago.” “What happened?” “This was before you were born. People used to believe that Mystics were the cause of misfortune.” “There was a huge uproar and an entire town got destroyed!”We know what he’s talking about. End of Chapter 1, remember? “Ever since then, nobody dared say the word ‘Mystic.’…But I guess history repeats itself.” “But the ones making a fuss about Mystics this time are some big shots. They call the Mystics ‘the messengers of the gods.’” “’The messengers of the gods?’ That’s a little exaggerated, isn’t it?” “Well, if we got to the castle, I guess we can see these guys for ourselves. These big shots.” “Yeah, probably.” “Hmm..There must be something big behind this whole thing. I hope not, though…”Lang and Maya’s Relationship “By the way…What’s your relationship with Maya?”We get a choice. Unlike with Nancy, we can’t straight up claim to have an intimate relationship, only “mess with his head”. But we have no interest in playing weird games with our “relationship” with Maya. “After we escaped the castle, we’ve just been traveling together. We don’t have any special…’relationship.’” “Hmm…That’s what you SAY, but it seems to me Maya’s really opened up to you. And she’s such a shy girl, too!” ”Still not going there, dude.”Lecturing “Listen, boy. Martial arts are all about Discipline. Discipline is the only way you’re gonna master your skills. And…” “Huh? Hey! Are you even listening?!”We get another choice. Be sleepy, actually listen, or say we’d rather train. We choose to have listened. “Of course I was listening! ‘It takes discipline to master one’s skills,’ right?” “You WERE listening! OK. The 7 martial arts principles are courage, morality, humanity, wisdom, courtesy, integrity and honor….” (*yawn* How long is the guy gonna talk?)And with that, we’re finally done with the side conversations. I do enjoy a bit of character building, but it’s a lot of text to dump on players the first time it’s available. But we’re not completely done. Exiting the menu gives us a cut scene…  “Hmph…Sound asleep…” “Poor girl. If she weren’t a Mystic cursed with the blood of her ancestors…She’d probably be living a normal life…surrounded by family…” “The blood of her ancestors…?” “A long time ago, there was a race called the Kabel.” “They might have had human bodies, but they had the power to control everything in the universe. The Kabel called it magic…” “Maya is from the same blood line. She used to have the same powers…” “If it weren’t for those powers…Maya would never have…” “Would never have what? What happened?” “Her powers went out of control. If I had only realized sooner, I might have been able to help. She never would have…”Kazan says no more, so Lang decides to sleep.  We awake the next day with the ingredients to make multiple Kazan Currys. This will be very helpful in the next segment. But that will have to wait for next chapter. Join me next time, where we experience the dreaded SEWER LEVEL.
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Apr 17, 2021 11:32
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How long do the stat boosts last for?
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Apr 17, 2021 13:07
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LJN92 posted:
LJN92 posted:
Yeah, I wondered about that here, it should probably be "we" for these. Area name trivia - the English text was always there and has been re-translated in most cases 
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Apr 17, 2021 15:52
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Rigged Death Trap posted:How long do the stat boosts last for? You know when I saw this question, I realised I had never properly tested it myself, and no walkthroughs seemed to have the answer. So I decided to do a quick experiment. It seems like they last for 8-9 battles. I say this because I tried two dishes, Kazan Curry and Tomato Risotto. Kazan Curry came out at 9, the Risotto at 8. I may have miscounted, and it's possible every dish has a different duration, but I'll have to do more testing at a later date. If it's genuinely different for every dish, I'm not sure I have the stamina to test every last one. Polsy posted:Area name trivia - the English text was always there and has been re-translated in most cases Huh. Funnily enough, not even the "original" English translations aren't quite in line with the Japanese. It's like they just decided to leave out all the descriptive phrases. And what the heck's with calling the Morg a "guardian"? I'm not sure that's even a possible translation of that Kanji.
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Apr 17, 2021 23:05
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LJN92 posted:And what the heck's with calling the Morg a "guardian"? I'm not sure that's even a possible translation of that Kanji. Hmm, you do see 'guardian spirit' as an option for 主 in some dictionaries but I'm not sure that's really distinct from the 'lord' translation in the 'it's the guy in charge' sense. It doesn't seem like he's defending the mountain from anything in particular.
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Apr 18, 2021 13:11
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This is kinda where Legaia 2's premise gets a little confusing to me. If Origins share a body with their host, and they die when the host dies, why wouldn't they appear soon into the host's life to protect themselves? Only doing it right when they're close to death seems risky. I'm also not sure why Lang's Origin didn't appear when fighting Gold Eyes. Lang was beaten badly enough that Gold Eyes even thought he was dead, and Gold Eyes' Origin was intent on killing him. Oh yeah, an eerie mist covering the mountains? People who played the first Legaia would be immediately suspicious of this. Speaking of which, that reminds me that I always felt Final Fantasy 9 kind of ripped of Legend of Legaia in a weird way, considering the whole mist thing and how it covers the continent (and later the whole world) and gives birth to monsters. Both games even have a character named Ozma! It's certainly just coincidence, mist/fog is a standard cliche for "danger" but since Legaia came out first, the second I played FF9 I immediately went "Wait did they just straight up copy Legaia?"
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Apr 19, 2021 03:15
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Twelve by Pies posted:If Origins share a body with their host, and they die when the host dies, why wouldn't they appear soon into the host's life to protect themselves? Only doing it right when they're close to death seems risky. Yeah, Origin stuff is all based on plot convenience. You do see what is presumably Galea inside Lang urging him to awake (if you go back and look at Chapter 2, you'll see a screenshot of a little fireball thing. Pretty sure that's Galea). Of course why he didn't up and manifest at that point is beyond me. It makes me think of Super Saiyan from Dragon Ball Z: at first, it had all these requirements about purity of heart, a certain base power, and a triggering event. Then Goten and Trunks get it like it's nothing. Legaia 2 works on the same principle; they make it seem like Origins need a specific moment to awaken, but it's really when the writer wanted it to happen for dramatic purposes.
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Apr 19, 2021 03:54
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Chapter 7 - Two Sewers for the Price of One Where we last left off, we had finally departed from Mt. Gabel, with Lang having awakened his Origin. Our goal now is to go to Darakin, find out where the Aqualith/Sacred Azure Stone is, and return it to Nohl. But first! (How many times will I type this in this LP?)   We head back to the Forest Maze. Kazan will bitch at us the entire time we’re here about how we’re supposed to be going to Darakin, but nothing comes of it.  The most common encounters here are with Voorsts and Bean Guns. Voorsts are pretty standard enemies. They can attack, they can attack the entire group, and they can use a howl that stuns. Bean Guns act by, you guessed it, shooting beans. But not in the way you’re thinking…  The beans they fire are completely new enemies. They attack regularly, but they cannot be harmed by anything short of Origin attacks at this point. Fortunately, we got exactly that before coming here.  Hilgigas’ represent a trend in enemies who will get stronger after you damage them.  They waste a turn to do this, however, so it only helps if they can act faster than you. Now, on our own entirely, even with Kazan on board, we would have a little trouble with these enemies, if only because they act rather quickly. With the power of Kazan Curry, however, we not only act faster due to raised agility, but also hit harder. Also, Kazan’s Origin attack at this point can annihilate groups of enemies easily. When we encounter Bean Guns and Voorsts, one attack from Deva puts them down. Galea can K.O. the Beans due to a type advantage (yes, this game has those too), but struggles with the Voorsts. Two rounds from a Curry boosted Kazan and Lang is enough to defeat Hilgigasi. The thing is, you’re not meant to be here, as per Kazan’s constant nagging, so all these enemies are tougher than what we would find if we preceded normally. Thus, we can level up a lot faster and trivialise the next few dungeons. We take Lang from level 15 to level 21 just grinding in the Forest Maze. But eventually, one must get on with the game. We haven’t taken Kazan to Nohl yet, have we? Let’s take him to Nohl.  “Oh, that’s Kazan. He’s helping me look for the Aqualith.” “Oh really!? *cough cough!* I am his instructor! He is learning the way of the sword from me.” “He was searching for the Aqualith, and I decided to help him.” ”I was getting there, man, no need to get all huffy.” ”From now on you will announce my masterhood FIRST AND FOREMOST.” It’s funny that Kazan is still such a non-believer when not only does he have a super powerful spirit inside him, but he’s standing in a whole village full of people who would tell him the Aqualith was legit. “Even if you don’t believe that this lake was made by a magic stone…I still have to bring it back.” “You seem to be telling the truth. I’m sorry. I am with you, especially if it concerns the Infinite Origin!” (Scary old man? Could she be talking about Kazan?)Kazan earns the “Boogey Man” title because he’s so ugly he scares small children.  Galvan has surprisingly little to say this time. It’s for the best, of course, considering he’d just say something stupid and/or sexist.  Talking to Maya gives us yet another stark reminder that this town is dying while we piss about on side quests and grinding.   “Lang! When did you get back?” “Can’t you see I’m busy now?! I have to make everyone’s lunches!!”We get to offer to help. It would be stupid to refuse, as Nancy’s about to give us a new cooking recipe. “I’ll help you then. You could use a hand, right?” “What?! Really? That would be great! It’s rice balls for lunch today, so it should be pretty easy!” The scene fades to black while they make the balls. Probably because they didn’t want to animate the cooking prep, but I wouldn’t put it past an anime game to make this some kind of sexual euphemism. “Thanks, Lang! It helped a lot!” “It’s not like you to thank me without a little sarcasm, Nancy!” ”Last time I even offered to help, you told me I’d just add to your work.” “How dare you?! At least you can make a decent rice ball now!” “Well, since you helped out, I guess you should take one with you for the road!”We learn the Rice Ball recipe and get a “Working Lunch”. There’s nothing else worth seeing in Nohl now, so we get on with the plot.  Our task is to find out how to reach the Aqualith. Obviously it’s in the castle, but…  “Can’t get in through the main entrance, looks like…”Guard: “Did you come to see the castle? Apparently, they’re on emergency alert. I’m sorry, but you can’t go in.” Guard: “Ever since the Bishop found the Sacred Azure Stone, the castle’s been this way. I wonder what they’re doing in there?” (The Aqualith is here in this castle…! I’ve got to find a way to get inside!)So yeah, we need to get into the castle some other way. There’s a trail of clues left by NPCs, in particular Joe, the information guy, but I know exactly where I’m going and how to get there. First, remember how I mentioned that Veska lady was plot critical?  Her decision to throw away her old noble crest is the only reason the party get to proceed. Hurray for conveniences! Having this emblem now means that everyone in the rear end in a top hat district thinks we’re nobility and is all like “OOOH you’re worth BROWNOSING!”  Most importantly, it gives us access to this hotel, which this lady describes as smelling of a sewer… But before we proceed, there’s a few things we can grab.  This chef gives us a magazine that teaches cooking recipes. It teaches one to every character we have. This includes characters we get later on, if we re-use it when we have them.  If we go back to Sabrina’s inn, her husband is now selling food. If we eat these dishes, Lang uses his latent abilities as a cooking prodigy to instantly learn how to recreate them.  Oh, but it was, Leon. Now, let us proceed with the plot.  This guy gives way to our literal status symbol.  We find the sewer entrance in one of the hotel’s lower class rooms. We don’t even need to rent the room to find it, and good thing too, because this hotel charges 10000 gold for the most basic rooms.  Now Playing – Setting of Glory (That must be sarcasm in the song name, right?) “Gesuidou”, exactly as translated. It’s just a plain old sewer with no special features. And that is the big problem with this section. Like so many banal sewer levels before it, Legaia 2’s sewer level is plain, drab, tedious, ho-hum, and every other mediocre descriptive word I can use. The gist of this dungeon involves finding keys like this.  We use Galea to destroy the crates and knock it down to our level. Once we have the key, we unlock the corresponding sluice gate room.  We pull the lever, it drains part of the sewers, then we can proceed. There’s three sluice gates, this read one, a blue one, and a yellow one. Each one needs a key. The rub is you have to find these keys while poking around this bland, featureless maze of a dungeon, all the while dealing with random encounters which can throw off your sense of direction. This can be annoying enough as an adult, but as a kid? I heavily relied upon a walkthrough to get out when I first played this.  You get this Old Map to help you out. As far as I can tell, the circles on the map are where the keys are, and of course the coloured marks are the sluice gates. If you’re an impatient child like I was, you probably didn’t take the time to figure it out. Now let’s talk encounters.  On the right, we have a generic skeleton. On the left, some kind of sewer abomination.  Bone Warriors can use an attack that basically makes you play a short minigame. You have to press the buttons that light up, and if you do it well, you can minimize the damage the attack does. Play badly, and it will do a lot more. They can also use an attack that causes “spellbind”, a status that prevents the use of Arts. The Netherkinds can cause the berserk status, but I kill them far too quickly to have them actually try it.  Here we encounter Jelly Melts and an Evil Fly. Evil Flys can poison you or cause paralysis. Other than that, they’re the weakest enemies here. Jelly Melts are the most annoying. They’re the worst example of Legaia 2’s directional attacks, as only downward strikes hit them. If you’ve got a combo that you’re comfortable with, prepare to have to redo it, because most of it will probably miss. To top it all off, they have a passive skill that halves normal attacks, meaning you typically need to hit them a bit to kill them. Oh and they can split in two, so that’s fun. The kicker here is that none of these encounters are difficult. Even if I hadn’t grinded for levels in the Forest Maze, I could still effortlessly kill most enemies using Kazan Curry and Origin attacks. All the encounters are just distractions as you wander around looking for the keys you need to proceed.  For some reason, there’s these glowing moss patches that Rivas can interact with. I don’t know what their function is. I even tried looking it up. We find a camping site, which lets us sit down for a chat.  You loving said it, Lang! “Why don’t we just break down the castle gate and hit ‘em straight on?”Please! Please let me! “There are guards swarming all over inside the castle gate. What are you gonna do about them?” “What do you think? I’ll shred them!”Sometimes I don’t even need to invent dialogue for Cocky Lang. “You’re not afraid of anything, are you? Even when you should be!” “Listen, kid. The worst thing you can do in battle is be too confident.” “If you’re overconfident or confused, it gives the enemy an opening. And they’ll definitely take advantage of it!” “If you wanna stay alive long enough to bring the Aqualith home, you better really listen to what I’m telling you.” ”Look, I hear you, but I was captured there once, and just kind of walked out. Beat their best knight too.” ”Tsk tsk, overconfidence…” This item we pick up teaches Kazan his own Hyper Art, Fists of Rage. I won’t make a video for it, as you’ll be seeing plenty of it in videos to come. Anyway, we eventually arrive at the end of the dungeon.  Alright, Doplin, here we come!  Wait a minute… So yeah, the end of the sewers is not coming out in Doplin’s castle.  We have to have Galea knock down this wall to proceed. This leads us to…  Another loving underground tunnel dungeon! Now Playing – Forgotten Inheritance The Kanji come out to something like “Underground Ruins”. “Kabel” is not mentioned, but frankly it’s more descriptive and relevant to the nature of these ruins. We’ve heard “Kabel” mentioned somewhere, haven’t we? In relation to someone? Funnily enough, the Kabel Ruins are almost less colourful than the sewers. The floors are gray and the walls are beige. But at least there’s some actual puzzles to solve.  In this room, there are 4 mossy pedestals, 3 glowing, 1 unlit. The plaque calls on us to either light the last one or snuff out the rest. The former is simpler, of course.  Here we have a palette swap from Gale Canyon. These ones can be rather dangerous, since their most frequent attack can stun.  Alongside enemies from the sewers we just cleared, we encounter an even more recent palette swap. Zurvlai don’t even have any attacks that Galdukes didn’t.  We will find “Adventurer’s Logs” through the ruins that tell us how to solve puzzles. This one explains that we have to spell out “FISH” on the pedestals in this room.  Each pedestal corresponds with a letter, and we have to light them up in order to spell “Fish”, so F->I->S->H.  This one calls on us to light the nearest two pedestals and snuff out the furthest two.  We reach another campsite, strategically placed outside a door. Any RPG veteran knows what this means. We can also do chatting here.  They’re discussing the Adventurer’s Logs. “This diary is like a guide on how to get through this place.” “I’d like to thank the person who wrote this…if he’s still alive, that is.”Once we’re done preparing, we head into the next room.   “Hmm…An ancient ruin…There appears to be an inscription of some sort…Could be!? A spell!!” Maya collapses to her knees, hugging herself. “Maya!? Are you all right?” “…That day….Memories of the day her powers got out of hand…” “If only…If only I had seen the signs! Had I been aware of Maya’s powers sooner, I would have been able to stop it!!” “The tragedy…It could have been prevented…” “Tell me…What happened?” “Maya….Maya’s family…” Someone is heard entering the chamber at this point. Now Playing – Evil Desires  Ah, if it isn’t our favourite Fuhrer-Bishop-King!  “Hm?! Your faces are familiar to me…You! You are those fugitive Mystics!!” “If I had known to find you here, it would have spared me the trouble of sending Elliott! Arrrgh!!!....”This also means we won’t be encountering Marienne. Thank all that’s holy.  “Why! Am I not the Lord of Darakin and the Bishop of the Holy Order of Banderas? I never lie!”  “Hmph! You are only a petty villain, who somehow came into power.”   “And what would a villain be plotting in such a room? Planning to call on some demons, were you?” “Demons…Perhaps you are correct…” We saw that creature by her side when we were held in the castle. “Magic that manipulates heaven and earth…Such powers could very well beget demons.” “You are wrong, Velna! I do not aspire to create demons!! I require soldiers of God!” “The entity that governs all life…That is God! I seek the power that manipulates life at will!!” “And this room, it gives me that power….The wisdom of the Kabel will reveal, to me, the way to God!!” “You disgust me…All you speak are words of selfish desire!” “What blasphemy to even consider manipulating nature and life to suit your own will! God?! Don’t make me laugh!” “Fwah ha ha ha! It is impossible for lowly folk like you to comprehend my will! I alone hear the voice of God!”  “Apparently, you are not aware that blasphemy against the heavens has dire consequences…”Doplin looks to Velna, who nods.       “With the strength of Kabel and the Mystics at my command, I will establish the ideal world I have always envisioned!!” “…Join me. What do you say? I grant you the opportunity to join God in creating a utopia!”It occurs to me now that, assuming Doplin wasn’t too careful in acquiring their co-operation, the heroes could totally just lie and say they’d work for him, get into the castle, and then turn on him there, presumably with Slogar gone. But we basically just get to pick our flavour of refusal here.  “Fwoh ho ho…Fool! Nothing is impossible with the secrets of Kabel at my command!” ”I said I wasn’t INTERESTED, Bishop Dipshit! Not that I doubted the possibility!” “…As they say, the true path is apparent only in hindsight…I am truly disappointed…” “Had you decided to follow me, you could have been honoured citizens of a beautiful utopia!” “Bishop…Surely, you are not going to…???!” “It cannot be helped. God’s servant they may be, but they are of no use if they refuse to do my bidding. He will surely understand…” “Alas! This too must be a test that God has placed before me!! It pains me, it truly pains me…” “Now, it is time for Slogar to test his new powers on you…” “Eve you are helpless against the powers of Kabel! Revel in its strength before you depart for the other world….”  Maya is present on the field for this fight, but she will not participate. She sits in the same position as before we began.   We can totally take it on our own though, right?  Of course not. The only genuine boss fights so far have been Gather Crab, Elfin, and the MIGHTY Balken. Gold Eyes, Elliott and Marienne (technically) and the Morg were all basically glorified cut scenes. With the addition of Slogar, the majority of bosses thus far have had some kind of unbeatable segment.  Origins have no affect too. “Pure embodiment of power”, everyone.   Interestingly, Galea’s line is not voiced. This is the case in Japanese too. Either they just didn’t care to, or this is confirmation Origins speak explicitly via psychic communication.    The rest of the fight just involves waiting. Slogar’s attacks hit hard, but not so hard you can’t comfortably heal with items.           Now the actual boss fight begins. However, as before, Slogar doesn’t really hit hard enough to make you worry. You just gotta hit him till he’s dead, and it’s not that hard to manage. Click the image below to watch Slogar get his rear end beat. (The video got a bit choppy at points due to the limits of my computer. It may not be very noticeable, but I apologise in advance)  “I remember…This terrible light…This very same light…Again…” “….Aaah…..Uhhhh….” Now Playing – Your Voice “Maya…You can speak!! Has your voice returned!?”Maya gets up without responding.  “Did I….Did I use that power again??!” “Why do I have this power?!...How I wish I didn’t!! Then Father…and Mother!!...*sob*…” “We couldn’t have defeated him ourselves…We needed your power to do it…” “The power itself isn’t inherently good or evil! That’s up to the person who wields it!” “Maya, we wouldn’t have made it without you! I believe in you, Maya!” “…Thank you, Lang.” “But…I don’t…I don’t know how to use magic…”Translation: Maya might have gotten her voice back, but she won’t be useful in a fight for a while! “Really?...” “But at the moment, we must concentrate on finding our way out of this labyrinth and into that castle.” “You’re right…The Aqualith is waiting for us.” “Let’s go!!”We are now free to proceed. But I’ll just throw in this one camp conversation we can have immediately after the boss…  “Oh, don’t worry about me, Kazan. You know…I’ve been really torn…” “I avoided using this power…this magic, but I was worried that meant suppressing and hiding a part of me…” “I was worried I’d have to live my whole life that way! That’s what I’ve been torn about.” “But then you said something that helped, Lang. ‘Power itself is not bad! It all depends on the person who uses it.’” “So I decided that, if I could help you with this power, I wouldn’t be afraid anymore! Thank you…Lang…!” “No, don’t be thanking me! We’re the ones that got saved by your power! Right, Master?” “Yeah! That’s right! That’s exactly right. But…you know…” “I don’t think you could really call that last battle ‘controlled magic.’ It was more like ‘magic power gone wild…’” “I can do better! I just know it! I know I can learn to use this power properly!” “Thatta girl, Maya!”And there I shall leave it. Join me next time, where we finish the Kabel Ruins, storm Doplin Castle at dawn, and finally find the Aqualith.
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Apr 19, 2021 21:55
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It's a good thing that your main guys are such shitwreckers cause we're already like 20 levels in and we're still basically at 2 party members
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Apr 19, 2021 23:15
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LJN92 posted:
Feel like this shouldn't be that comforting when she already killed her parents by wielding the power, but I guess it worked.
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Apr 20, 2021 00:05
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Chapter 8 – Storming the Castle Last we left off, we defeated the evil Kabel beast Slogar, Maya got her voice back, and we were about to proceed towards the castle. BUT FIRST!  This is the hotel where we found the sewer entrance. I mentioned then that the basic rooms alone were pretty pricey, but the worst offender is the Deluxe room which costs 80000. It’s actually worth it though…  This teaches us the Atomic Heat dish. The Atomic Heat dish is possibly the best cooking recipe in the entire game, and gives you incredible stat boosts for every stat. Kazan Curry gives major attack and agility boosts, but comes at the cost of defence (and takes some MP, but you can just rest to recover that). The catch is we can’t make it now, even after having learned it. It requires the “Monster Meat” ingredient that cannot be acquired until later in the game. Once we get it though, then we’ll be trivialising boss encounters. I detail it here because this is where I had the funds to get the recipe. Now let’s get back to the plot, shall we?  If you thought beating Slogar was the end of the dungeon, you were wrong. There’s still a bit of the Ruins to get through.  This room contains a few items as well as these bookcases which detail ancient Kabel texts. Remember the name “Val Kenus”, because it’ll come up again.  One of the enemies we didn’t encounter last time is the “Skulraptor”. It’s most distinctive attack is “Deathgame”, where is shows you a bunch of cards, and then shuffles them, expecting you to pick one. These cards will either cause harm or instant death to either one of your characters or the Skulraptor that used it. We don’t see this attack in action because I’m destroying enemies too quickly.  These statues come to life as you pass them, and start a combat encounter with an unavoidable ambush.  But instead of just letting them ambush us, we can just have Galea smash them.  Here the plaque says “There is an order to everything”. So you have to light the pedestals in a certain order. Every time you do it wrong, the pedestals glow red and reset. Completing the puzzle gives us access to Adventurer’s Log 2. The log tells us an ancient Kabel riddle….   This relates to this room, with a bunch of coloured pedestals. We have to follow the order of the colours in the riddle: Yellow->Indigo->Red->Green.  This room tells us to make 3 o’clock, which involves making the light shine on this statue so the shadows form the clock hands of 3 o’clock. This gets us to the exit of the dungeon, but there’s another puzzle we need to complete to get the key to open the exit.  This one calls on you to light the pedestals in a specific order.  If you’re anything like me, you might have thought this asked you to light things in specific directions from the currently lit pedestal. This is only true for the first one, which is “7 to the right”. Then, you’re expected to go “4 to the left” from the one you just made, and so on.  With all that done, we proceed.  We come out in Doplin Castle, in the prison portion we were in the first time we ended up here. The potions are still here, including the one that heals.  Doplin’s got better guards this time around. But they’re no match for us, even without using Origins. ”So yeah, whatever happened to not shredding all the guards, Master?” ”…I guess I overestimated the possibility of sneaking our way through…” “Doplin Reserves” can apparently attack you with scroll-based magic attacks. I say apparently because they only do it every two turns and no fight lasts that long at this point.  The old Doplin soldiers can still be found. They’re just as weak as they were when we first came, so maybe it was an oversight. Anyway, all of these enemies scream “LORD DOPLIN!” when they die too, including the new ones. So guess what? Click here for another riveting “LORD DOPLIN!” compilation. Once we reach the central section of the castle, we can lower the drawbridge and walk out.  Guard: “Last I heard, the castle was closed. Isn’t it closed anymore?”  The guards step aside, allowing us to leave, rest, restock items, cook new food, the whole shebang. Carrying on into the castle, we can access one area we couldn’t last time.  This is Elliott and Marienne’s room. Now we know how she got so fat. We also find Marienne’s diary, titled “Boundless Love”. It’s a readable item.   Alas, my incredible genius has inadvertently attracted a Mystic! Guilty as charged, I must say. (The mere word “attracted” in relation to Marienne makes me want to vomit, even in a non-creepy context) But are you really a Mystic? You’d better call on those Origins, I’ll feed you to the rats! Oh, to spend another day with my dear brother  (Why the gently caress did she write her diary like it was talking to me? That gives me the creeps…) Here’s an extremely anime styled picture of Elliott, including his full name. Funnily enough, despite loving her brother to bits, Marienne drew his fringe on the wrong side of his face. You’d think she might remember his face and hair after staring at it all day?  On a bookshelf in their room, we find a book titled “Uppercrust Dessert”. This teaches characters new cooking recipes, all snobby deserts, naturally.  This is Doplin’s room. I have no idea what the joke/reference is with these book titles. Also note he has a big portrait of himself over his bed.  Our quarry lies beyond these doors, and only a pair of low level guards block our way. Or so it would seem…  …is that…?  It is! Now Playing – Knight’s Kingdom   “What impertinent behaviour to display here in Doplin Castle!!” “Insolence! Impertinence!” “Up ahead, in St. Joprian’s Church, Doplin, Bishop of the Holy Order of Banderas is…”Guard 1: “Raynof, sir! You mustn’t say…” “Oh, yes! Doplin bringing in the Sacred Azure Stone is top secret, isn’t it!” Guard 2: “He’s the one that defeated Balken, Raynof, sir.”   That’s right, readers. If you don’t refer to the MIGHTY Balken properly, there will be consequences! “So. This is the lot that killed my brother, huh…?”Born to the Mesai Clan as one of 3 boys, remember? “I’ll show you a thing or two before you die!”   This guy wobbles due to Raynof smacking him for his impertinence. Remember his example.  “What’s the matter? Speechless at the sight of me, are you? Well?!” “There’s no escape for you! I WILL avenge my brother’s death! I’ll kill you slowly, inch by inch!!” Raynof isn’t quite the delightful ham his brother was, but we’ll get our entertainment out of him yet. The very first time we use our Origins on him, we get this scene…  “I cannot stop trembling…its power is incredible…!” “Heh….I am filled with fear…but I will not run away!”   Raynof’s flunkies speak in what I’m reasonably sure is a “gay lisp”. I don’t know for sure if it’s intentional, but knowing Japan/Anime’s track record on bad gay jokes (see Persona 5 for one of the worst) there is a strong possibility the joke is that they’re gay. Now, for every time you wipe out both of Raynof’s flunkies (far too easy to do with Origin attacks), you will see this cut scene…    This brings two more flunkies into the battle. You can wipe those guys out twice in one round, provided you’re having both Lang and Kazan use their Origins. Thus you will see this cut scene twice per round until Raynof dies (or you stop killing his flunkies in unison). It’s both kind of funny and really annoying at the same time. Watch the boss fight video, and you’ll have “AT MY HANDS!” burned into your brain. On a personal note, my brother, who only loosely watched me play this game a good 15 years ago, remembered this scene in particular. Raynof is basically a meme inside my family alone. Of course, there’s more than this cut scene to see during the battle. This one plays after the first round…  “I can also smell you burning in hell, huh?”This one plays after doing enough damage…  “However! I am far from finished! The people do not call me ‘Raynof the Brave’ for no reason!” “Now! On behalf of countless lives and their unfulfilled wishes…” “Come! I will crush you!”Flunkies: “Sir Raynof! All hail Raynof the Brave, pride of the Red Knights!” Here is Raynof’s special attack…    …replete with Raynof striking a pose at the end! But so much like his brother, Raynof hits hard, but not nearly fast enough to actually pose a threat. We can easily heal from the damage he does and dish out too much too quickly for him.   “Balken…forgive me. I could not do it…brother…now our redemption is in your hands…”  Click the image below to witness Sir Raynof’s Bravery.  Guard: “Run! Escape!” They both flee like the cowards they are.  ”Hey now, he might have been no match for m-er, us, but he was brave enough to keep fighting in the face of our Origins.” ”I suppose…” “Doplin, up ahead…Sacred…Azure…?” “The Sacred Azure Stone…It is probably the Aqualith, Lang.” Of course, while Lang urges everyone on, we instead do the smart thing and go back to rest and re-supply before going in.  Now Playing – Holy Banderas Requiem “Hijiri Jopurian Raihaidou”. The translation is accurate.  Lang then notices the huge stone slab. “What’s that? There’s something engraved on it…” “Oh, my!! That monolith! There’s one just like it in my village!” “That monolith? There’s one like that in your village, too, Maya?” “Yes. But there’s something a little different about this one. There’s something black engraved on it…” “YOU?!” “Just what exactly…are you up to? What’s that monolith you’re worshipping? Some kind of religious mumbo jumbo?” “’Mumbo jumbo!’ Bite your tongue!! This represents all of my ambitions…uh, I mean…Avalon’s ideal world!!” “When the Black Sun engraved on this monolith rises…then our utopia, our kingdom of the gods, will be born!!” “Hmm?! Don’t tell me you lot came here looking for this Sacred Azure Stone…?!” “You can’t have it! It’s mine!!” “What are you talking about? Avalon gave me this stone!” “Besides, I need it! It’s going to make me into a god! I’ll never give it to you!”     Now Playing – God of the Evil Ones “Avalon!”Yes, that’s right, our old buddy Gold Eyes is Avalon, the secret evil puppet master of Darakin. WHAT A TWIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIST!!!!!! “Huh? So it’s…’Ava….lon,’ is it…?” “Avalon…” “Just as I was told….Here are Earth, Life….and Flame…” Igohl: “How could he survive?”  “So this is the Supreme Origin…It radiates pure power…”Avalon takes a step forward and looks intently at Lang. “I think this is the man…!” “Igohl, let me answer your question for you.”  “Wait…! Avalon!! What are you going to do?”  “Yikes!!”Igohl: “What is this light?!” “Yes, there’s no question about it…” “Huh…?” “If you want the stone, go ahead and take it…” “…Soon the Eclipse will completely cover the earth, and a new world will be born…” “And then the old race will perish, and only Mystics will survive!” “I was born with one purpose alone: to change this world!” “I will become the ruler of the new world!” No, there’s no chance to become evil here or make any meaningful choice. You guys should know how this works by now. You just get to choose your flavour of rejection.  “Yeah, maybe we DO have some kind of power that other people don’t have.” “But that doesn’t mean we can do whatever we drat well please! That’s just plain arrogance!” “Build a new world? With YOU?! HA!! You expect me to forget that you almost killed me?” ”And you sure as hell killed Edouard too! Like I’d forget to bring HIM up!” “You still seek revenge do you? Do you not understand that the past must be sacrificed for a better future?” “You sacrifice compassion for power? I would rather die than be part of your new world!” “So…you refuse to cooperate, do you? You insist on defying me?” “Yeah, that’s right!” “…I see…”     | “Hold it!! We’re not through talking!”  “That beast you fought in the Kabel Ruins…That was just a mere imitation of the real thing.” “The one I’m summoning now from the depths of hell is the TRUE beast.” “Although its appearance is similar, you will know the difference as you pass from this world…”   Velna teleports away, leaving us with…   This game has been pallet swapping a lot, even in its earliest dungeons. Zoan Stoara is perhaps the most egregious example of this. It is not merely of a similar look to Slogar, but the entire fight is just Slogar 2: Electric Boogaloo. That includes the story beats from the Slogar fight. Yes, we are going to experience Maya having a magical epiphany again. The first segment of the fight is just like with Slogar. We can’t hurt it, not with Arts and not with Origins. The only difference is Maya is here to stand still like she usually does rather than being plotted out. First turn, we get a cut scene.  That’s Velna talking, by the way. It’s not entirely clear if she’s psychically speaking to everyone or we’re just hearing her thoughts for some reason. By “family” she means “race/species”, as in Mystics. It’s not some weird Final Fantasy 8 revelation where everyone’s secretly related. (Why do they choose to be destroyed…) (We are a race very much in touch with nature…and if we are to disobey our hearts…) (There is a price to be paid for such action…)  “Leave this to us, and hide in a safe place!”  “Not even this thing!”But try as we might, we can’t hurt it.   “What should I do? I have to do something…or else…”The game makes us dither for another turn or two.         “I will keep my promise, and return with the Aqualith!” “No matter what…I will never give up!”   Maya’s Memory: “Earth and Wind…Water and Fire…You must hold the whole world inside your body.” “Earth and Wind…Water…Fire…” Suddenly, Maya has an attack command. We have to enter the exact sequence from the memory: Earth, Wind, Water, Fire. If we don’t do that, Maya will dither and tell you how you did it wrong by cut scene. This wastes a whole turn of combat.         Just like with Slogar, the fight’s not over yet. And just like with Slogar, the rest of the fight is easily manageable. Zoan Stoara will just alternate between single hit and full party attacks, but will never do nearly enough damage to make us worry. The only difference is now we can use Arts with Maya. Unfortunately, the most common strategy up to this point with Maya is to equip her with the Barricade Ring accessory. This gives her a skill called “Turtle” which gives her increased defence in exchange for sacrificing attack. As Maya couldn’t attack until now, this was the perfect strategy to make her a nearly invincible healing machine. Now that she can attack, the Turtle skill cuts her damage down to the hundred range. Lang and Kazan are doing closer to 4000 per round each for comparison. But this changes little, as Zoan Stoara still goes down like a bitch. Click the image below to watch the Slogar boss fight. I mean, the Zoan Stoara boss fight. (In almost poetic fashion, this video has similar and somewhat worse slowdowns than Slogar. Apologies again)  “That guy said…Lang is ‘a star shaper…’” “Hmm…That man also carries the Supreme Origin…” “What was he saying? Something called ‘the Eclipse’ would ‘completely cover the earth…’ He’s a mysterious one…” “Lang, you can save your village now that you’ve got that stone back, right?” “Yeah, that’s right! The whole village will be safe with this!” “In that case, let’s get a move on, back to your village!” (But I still wonder why…Why did he give me back the Aqualith…?)Before we can go anywhere, we’re spirited away to another cut scene…    “The sacred stones? But…” “…Yes of course. Rauss and I will defend the altars to the death!”Rauss is presumably the armoured hulk standing next to Velna. Haven’t we heard that name before?   “I want to give that boy a little test. I have to see if he really holds the same power I do.” “If he really IS a Star Shaper, he’ll eventually find his way to me…and he’ll be carrying all three stones!” “I look forward to that moment…” You can see where the plot is going from here already. On that note, we shall end this chapter. Join me next time, where we return the Aqualith and the world changes forever.
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Apr 22, 2021 12:36
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I for one will never disrespect the MIGHTY Balken ever again. Maya's attack command isn't anything unique or special since it's essentially just the same commands everyone has but with different names and her slinging spells instead of beating dudes up, but I do like it, it at least makes her feel slightly different. Also Marienne fuckin sucks but her diary is cute at least.
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Apr 22, 2021 19:13
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Yeah this game's alright once we're out of the bullshit.
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Apr 22, 2021 21:28
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This is the part of the game where it gets really good, from what I remember. At least from cooking dishes onward, because now there's a whole long side quest about finding recipes and the completionist in me had collecting to do 
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Apr 23, 2021 01:38
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The Zoan Stoara palette/gimmick reswap seems like all kinds of lazy bullshit, but I like the idea at least of Maya slowly getting over her issues and saving the day both times. And mentioning the Eclipse now? This game really is anime as gently caress.
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Apr 23, 2021 01:49
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Shitenshi posted:This game really is anime as gently caress. This game will only get more anime from here. You guys had better brace yourselves for the levels of anime we're going to hit.
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Apr 23, 2021 02:22
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Can't wait to see all the new and inventive ways they justify dealing 0 damage in a boss fight!
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Apr 23, 2021 08:05
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Chapter 9 – The Day of Black Sun Where last we left off, we recovered the Aqualith and defeated yet another evil beast of Kabel. We are now free to return to Nohl, with no loose ends left whatsoever.   Everybody in town is talking about how we “got rid of” the Bishop. If you recall, Doplin just kind of walked out, following Avalon into his wacky portal. Of course these guys don’t know that. You’d think the sudden disappearance of Darakin’s central figure would result in some kind of social upheaval, but no, Darakin’s gonna be just fine as it is. The game expects us to go straight back to Nohl, but there’s more content if we leave and go back into Darakin.  Maya is standing in the streets, looking for Nils. We decide to play along. “Sounds good! I’ll help you look.” “Okay! I’m going to look over there.”Maya heads off in an indistinct direction. Where she actually went is near the city’s well.  We don’t find Nils here, that’s for sure. He’s actually hiding between the city exit and a shop.  Nils gives us a “Dream Shake”. It’s a restorative item that gives you MP. We won’t be able to get these regularly until we hit a certain new location.  Ah yes, The Simpsons.  Now that we’ve found Nils, we can rat him out. Unfortunately for Nils, I’m not sure anything in the game changes if we build relation points with him, so… “I saw Nils around the entrance to town.” “Thanks.” Nils ask if we ratted him out. Funnily enough, it’s not a binding choice, and you can talk again to give a different answer. Nothing comes of it either way.  Hathaway: “What!? I told you, this sword is new! It’s worth 15000, easy!” “15000 for a piece of junk? Your customers aren’t that stupid! 5000! Final offer.”Hathaway: “You’re outta line, sir! That’s less than half price!” “There isn’t a man alive who’d pay 15000 for this! 5000! That’s it!”Hathaway: “Sir…This is really….Okay, how about 10000?” “Nope. 5000! There’s no way I’m paying more.”Hathaway: “Fine! 8000! That’s lower than a liquidation sale!” “5000!”Hathaway: “Grrr…7000! I’m sorry, sir, but that’s the best I can do!” “You just don’t get it. I told you, I’m not paying more than 5000.”Hathaway: “You’re an unbelievably stubborn customer! Fine! 5000 it is!” We actually acquire a “Venom Blade” weapon out of this. Kazan also gets the “Haggler” nickname.  As my general policy as Cocky Lang is to be nice to allies, we praise Kazan.  Legaia 2 Localiser: Kids love it when words are misspelled in a cool way, right? “Ha, ha, ha! You’re still young, Lang. You need time to get this good.” Hathaway will keep doing a crying animation until we leave. And leave we shall, as there’s no more content to be had in Darakin. There are, however, new camp conversations. Maya’s Voice  “But then I finally realized that if this power is mine….then I had to accept it as a part of me…” “So, I decided not to run anymore. I’m sorry I made you worry! I’m…I’m all right now!” “Maya…we’re sorry. We’re sorry we had to drag you into all this.” “Are you really all right now, Maya?” “Yes! I’m completely fine now! Besides, no matter what kind of monsters we run into now, I can just blast them with my magic!” “Um, is that a little too overconfident?” “Nah. Good for you, Maya!” ”Well actually-” ”Oh give it a rest, Master.”Origins United  I presume this conversation came from me using all of them in the Zoan Stoara fight. “I guess the Origins couldn’t meet before, either…” “Yes. We don’t usually show ourselves in public.” “We work behind-the-scenes. Nothing to do with the common world.” “What a loner! I like being outside!” “We are of a different nature than the common world. Know that their worldly passions bring nothing but trouble.” “Fine. Stay in the background, then! And rot there!” “Please, stop it. Giving sermons isn’t like you, Deva…” “This is a rare occasion, isn’t it? I suspect that’s his way of being happy.” “…Nonsense!” “Don’t get the wrong idea that we’re friends. I’m going to do as I please!” “H-Hey!” “What a hot-headed Origin you possess, Lang. Does he take after you? Or is this your true spirit? Heh heh…” “What a lively journey this has become! I look forward to where it will go!”And now we finally head back to Nohl.   Go figure Lang being happy to save his village from death, Kazan.  Marcus: “What’s the matter? You seem different somehow…” “Marcus…I got it. I finally brought the Aqualith back!!”Marcus: “R-Really!?....You!? You really, really have it!!?” “…..Yes! I brought it back!!”Marcus: “W-Wait here! I’ll go get everyone right away!!”  “But all of this was not your doing alone…Only with the help of Maya and I, were you able to succeed!” “Hmm? …Do you hear me, Lang?” ”Yeah, I can hear you pissing on my parade. Look, I get you guys helped, and I’m grateful, but why the gently caress would you pick this moment in particular to demand I express my eternal gratitude? This is supposed to be about returning the Aqualith to my dying village, not who contributed what!” ”…when you put it that way, maybe this was a bad time…”The scene fades to black here, picking up here…    Hawke: “But…You have…You have saved us!” Hawke: “On behalf of everyone in this town, let me express our gratitude! Thank you!” Hawke: “Now….The hand that returned the Aqualith must restore it to its rightful place!!”    Now Playing – Going to My Hometown   Dein does a “Tsk!” before walking away. Little bitch can’t even be happy when his village is saved from dying.  “Lang!!”Hawke: “…..Ahh….Tonight we must celebrate your success!”  I just want to take a moment to share with you the goofiness of Galvan’s running animation.  “Hey, wait!!”Nancy gives chase, but stops to turn back to Lang.  We’re now free to explore Nohl and interact with the grateful villagers.  Except for Dein, who’s still being an rear end in a top hat.  ”You mean not even imminent death by dehydration was enough to motivate that moron? Colour me surprised.” “I’m cooking up something extra special for tonight! But the ingredients are top secret!!” “Kazan and Maya, they’re eating too, right?” “Thank you so much…I hope it won’t be an inconvenience.” “Oh, no no no! It’s nothing special, but please stay and make yourselves at home!” “Yeah, trust me. It’s really nothing special.” “What did you say!?” ”You’re right, that was incredibly stupid of me to say. Out of character, even…” “Well, I guess I have to let you off easy today. After all, you’re the hero that brought back the Aqualith!” “But it’s not like you got it back all by yourself, right? Just you, Lang? That would be impossible!” ”I mean I took down the Gather Crab, a sexually suggestive gorilla, and the MIGHTIEST knight in Darakin all alone. And let me tell you, the gorilla hit like a truck…” “Qu-quick!!! Nancy!! Something’s burning!!” “*sigh*….A waste of a perfectly good meal…” “Ho-ho! You leave us for a day or two, and what do you know! You come back looking more like a man!...Right, Lang?” ”I’m pretty sure I was gone for much longer than a day or two…” “Kazan…You’ve certainly worked wonders on this boy!” “I suppose it’s up to me to thank you, seeing that I’m the closest thing to a father he’s got.” “How about joining me in my room for a drink? You look like you can knock’em back…”    “Please!...I’m used to doing this sort of thing…” “…W-well, okay…If you insist. Thanks. Well…gotta start cooking all over again!”We are then free to walk about Galvan’s house.  “*hiccup*…*belch*…Holy macaroni! Dish guy’s really shomethin’…He’s a bottomlesh pit!”Kazan gets the “Bottomless” nickname. “A very impressive selection! Let’s try this one…*gulp, gulp, gulp*…” “Goes down easy, and has a refreshing aftertaste!...That’s what I needed!” “Hmm, we still have plenty left…*glug, glug, glug*…” “Ahhhhh!! How ‘bout it, Lang?! …Nah, you probably wouldn’t like it.” ”It’s also very illegal anywhere in Darakin territory.”The only thing left to do once you’ve finished talking to people is to use Lang’s bed and sleep. Now Playing – Wasteland of Far Away Places  “Hyahh!! Hyaaaah!!” “Guide your weight through your fist!” “Hraaah!” “Combine your moves, both large and small! Focus and finish off your opponent!” You can see Nancy on the balcony in this scene. “Ho, Lang!! You’re finally awake.” “Since you said that he was your master, I thought I’d test him a little…but look! He’s teaching ME now!” “His style may be unrefined, but he has a lot of potential.” “R-really? You think so? Gwa ha ha ha ha!” “Ho! Let’s be off then!” “And I’ll be going along to make sure that they don’t get attacked by monsters.”  Galvan and Boerto leave.  No matter what we pick, we’re going to Hunter’s Wood after Galvan. But we choose to ask for a lesson. “Master! Please! Give me a lesson too!” “Ahh…That’s what I like to hear. But here…?” “We need some more speace. And I don’t want you busting up somebody’s house. Let’s find a forest or a mountain…” “N-no, I was simply…” “Okay! Let’s go to Hunter’s Wood!”And so we go once more to Hunter’s Wood.  We don’t get far before we run into our first enemy, a pallet swap of our dear old friend the Bloody Wolf.  This is a scripted encounter for our lesson. “I will teach you the Sky Fang Art known as ‘Divine Bolt’!!”He proceeds to explain the attacks involved, and we pull off the Art. Click here to see the Divine Bolt in action. “Ho! Nice job, kid! Now don’t forget it!”Now that we’ve finally got Maya’s ability to attack (and taken the Barricade Ring off her), let’s go over how she works: Maya’s Arts are focused on using elemental damage. Every Art she has does a different type of elemental damage. Her basic attacks are all based on the fundamental elements, Earth, Wind, Fire and Water, but the Arts can also be Shadow and Light, for instance. Maya is unique in that she cannot chain Arts. Each Art is a set attack that cannot be linked to another. It sounds less useful, but she’s not completely worthless in a fight, and she can K.O. enemies just fine. Maya says what I assume is magical sounding gibberish when using normal attacks. If they’re not gibberish, I wouldn’t have a clue what they’re supposed to be. Click here to see Maya’s Art Exhibition. Hunter’s Wood has a camp site like every other dungeon now, with a few new chats. Nancy  Our policy is nicety unless we can be cocky, so… “Yep, Nancy sure is full of energy. Too much so for me to keep up with, sometimes!” “I envy you… I wish I had a sister like her.” “Whoa! Nancy and I aren’t related. She’s Galvan’s daughter.” “Really? That means…I’m sorry. I didn’t know…” ”Why would you apologise for that?” (I guess we DO look like brother and sister to outsiders, though.)Lang’s Parents  “…I…I don’t know, really…” “Sorry! I’m sorry. I asked something I shouldn’t have.” ”What’s with all the apologising? I’m not that sensitive, guys.” “Don’t worry. I don’t care about my real parents, anyway.” “I’m fine with Galvan as my dad. Even if he is a little uncool.” ”And even if he slapped me upside the head for every little thing I did wrong since he adopted me. And even if he keeps making sexist comments about Nancy.” “If he heard what you just said, he’d be touched and cry.” “No way! I bet he’d say ‘I’m UNCOOL?!’ and hit me!” “Hmm…Guess you’re right. Ha ha ha!”With those out of the way, we continue on our search for Galvan and Boerto. Every encounter here is the same: either 3 Saberwulfs, or 2 Saberwulfs and a Mad Hound.  Yeah, that’s right, there’s two pallet swaps of the same enemy in this dungeon. Mad Hounds don’t even have any attacks Saberwulfs don’t, just more HP. We find Galvan and Boerto at the Gather Crab/Avalon boss fight area. Because everything has to be regularly recycled in this game.  “Ho ho…That certainly is quite the catch.” “Aw, that was nothing! I am the Captain of the Vigilance Corps, after all!” ”Yeah, just like how you beat the Gather Crab, eh?” ”Yeah, just li-wait a minute…”Suddenly, there’s a flurry of noise. “Huh?” “The sky…What’s happening to it?” “It got so cloudy all of a sudden.” “Storm maybe? But something’s not right…”Now Playing – Black Sun      “This is creepy. The sun’s BLACK!”     Boerto: “M-Monsters!!” “Argh! What are these things…?!” “You two! Go back to town!” “Wait! What are you going to do?” “Don’t worry about us! Just let us take care of this!” Cocky Lang is so badass he doesn’t care that supernatural events are happening, he’s going to boast anyway. “Well…all right! But I want you to be careful!”Galvan books it out of there, presumably with Boerto.  Welcome to the third pallet swap of this dungeon. No, they don’t have new attacks, they’re just slightly stronger than Mad Hounds. We’re still in no real danger, and our Origins can obliterate them.  “I wonder. There was a flash of…’black’!?...then those things were suddenly alive again.” “Oh, yeah. The one that was hanging in St. Joprian’s Church.” ”One, just said that, two, it wasn’t hanging, it was a huge stone slab!” ”Semantics, boy…” “…Soon the Eclipse will completely cover the earth, and a new world will be born…” “So is this the eclipse Avalon was talking about?” “If what Avalon said was true, it’s got to be more than just this.” “I mean, if we believe he’s trying to destroy this world and create a new one…then this is only the beginning, an omen. If something terrible is going to happen, it’ll come later…That’s what I think.” ”Speaking of everyone, maybe it was a bad idea to have Galvan and Boerto run off into a forest likely full of resurrected hell beasts?” ”Oh crap, maybe…”We now have to walk out of Hunter’s Wood, fighting all the new encounters along the way. But first, let’s sit down and have a campside chat while a supernatural event takes place!  “Yeah. The bright sun has changed to a creepy black color. I hope nothing else bad happens!” “I wonder if other places are all right? In any case, we’d better get back to Nohl.” Oh look, pallet swaps of all the other enemies from our first time here! At least this is the first time we’ve seen a Klaw Ant pallet swap.  Now Playing – Beast of Darkness Exiting onto the world map, we see the world now basks in a healthy purple glow. Beast of Darkness has now permanently replaced Advancing to Far Away Places as the map theme. We first heard this track back at Kazan’s shack, looking at Avalon’s evil mist.  ”Aston, look at the sky!”Aston: ”Oh. Yeah, I guess that explains the panic.” ”Also all the monsters resurrected themselves.”Aston: ”…information I would have liked to have known as the gate guard…”  Boerto made it out okay, despite having nobody but Galvan to rely on.  ”You mean Galvan didn’t explain anything?” ”No! He just blitzed past me and ran into his room! I think I heard whimpering…” “Don’t worry about me! I’ve never seen anything like that before, but it was no match for me!” *grumble grumble* Overconfidence… *grumble grumble*” “Is the town all right?” ”Didn’t you just come through town?” ”Uh, yeah, I just figured I’d…make sure…nothing was wrong?” “Yeah…I don’t think ANYONE’s seen that before; especially not in Hunter’s Wood.” “But you never know when we’ll run into something like that again. Better be careful…”Hawke: “Monsters now mutating into ever greater monstrosities?...” “You think that black sun had something to do with it?”Hawke: “I do not know…But it is ominous…That black sun…” Hawke: “Galvan. I advise you to stay far from Hunter’s Wood for a while…” Hawke: “Fair guests, my apologies for the disturbance. Lang, it is time for you to rest.” We are once again free to move around.  Dein is determined to be a little bitch. Despite Hawke urging us to rest, sleeping is not the way to move on. We gotta go outside.  “Are we…Are we going to become like those monsters in Hunter’s Wood? I don’t…I don’t want that…” “…We just brought back the Aqualith…” “Are we going to sit here and watch the world crumble right before our eyes!?” “There must be something…There must be something that I…No!!! That WE can do!!” “Lang…You have spoken well!...” “I feel very much the same. But…that black sun…There are too many things not known to us…” “Reym…?” “He is a spirit…A spirit that has lived as one with the earth from days of old.” “It’s possible…If anyone can tell us about the black sun or the ‘rot’, it would be Reym.” “So…this Reym, Where is he?” “In my home town…Past The Forest Maze in a town called Yuno.” “All right! Let’s get going to Yuno!” “Lang, Yuno is quite far. I am certain there are many who will be sad to see you go so soon after you’ve returned.” “Prepare well for your journey. We will be waiting at the entrance of the town. Come when you feel that you are ready to depart.”We are left alone to say our goodbyes. However, despite what Kazan said, only two people meaningfully react to our intent to depart.  Dein, of all people.  And Nancy. “What’s going to happen? I don’t know what’s going on anymore, Lang….!!”We get a dialogue choice. Either dither or be confident. The answer is a given here. “Leave it to me!! I got the Aqualith back, didn’t I? This?...This is nothing!” “…You’ve grown up, Lang...I can hardly believe it’s you…” “Huh? Uhhh, well…” ”...our immediate plan is to go talk to an ancient spirit?” “…It’s all right. Don’t worry. I know you’re trying to make me feel better. I appreciate it though.” ”But we’re really going to-“  “Yeah…I hear it’s gonna be far this time…” “And I’m going to try my best to do my part, just like you, Lang!” “You make sure you come back! I’ll be waiting for you with a big feast all cooked up!”  Now we leave.  “Yes!” “Which way is Yuno?” “It’s west of Darakin. But along the way, we’ll have to pass through The Forest Maze…” “What’s wrong with the forest?” “There is a strange mist in the forest…It confuses the senses and makes one lose one’s way.” “Then what should we do?” Hmm, didn’t Mizel Red Sand come up once before? “It’s out of the way, but we should go back to Mt. Gabel to get it.”So it’s in Kazan’s shack? Hmm. Hmmmmmmmm.     ”Just saying one more goodbye…”And that is where we will leave things for now. Join me next time, where we realise that Kazan’s getting dementia. Also we probably reach Yuno.
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Apr 24, 2021 23:50
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really gotta squeeze all those already-made assets for all they're worth.
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Apr 25, 2021 00:51
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Jeez, I forgot the game went this hard on dumping "childhood love interest" markers on Nancy. Which is probably why I forgot really, too obvious.
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Apr 25, 2021 01:06
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The new world map music was very prominent in the original Legaia, I liked it there and I like it here too. I don't know the Japanese names for either of them but I feel fairly confident that Reym is a reference to Rem, who was God in the original Legaia (and also called Tieg) who was part human, part Seru. Aside from the name there's another reason for that which I'll save until the appropriate update.
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Apr 26, 2021 06:02
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Twelve by Pies posted:I don't know the Japanese names for either of them but I feel fairly confident that Reym is a reference to Rem It's レアム vs レム which is certainly close enough to be a deliberate reference without literally giving them the same name.
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Apr 26, 2021 16:16
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Chapter 10 – Lang’s DESTINY Where we last left off, Avalon’s promised Eclipse occurred, and the world is now showered in the Black Sun’s evil light. We’re now headed to Maya’s home town of Yuno, where an ancient spirit called “Reym” might be able to help us figure out what’s going on, and how we can stop Avalon. Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut first! We’re going back into Nohl.  I don’t know if I mentioned this already, but whenever you go into a town, your party members will go stand in different areas and have things to say. This is distinct from actual scenes as they say these lines every time you go in, and will stand in the same position (although it changes as the story progresses). This is a great way to check if a character has content at any given time, because you’ll figure out they’re not in their usual spot.  In Darakin, Maya’s still standing around on the street, talking about how fun playing hide and seek is.  Kazan stands around in the upper class district talking about the Kabel ruins. Why no one has arrested him for vagrancy I don’t know. Speaking of Darakin, there’s a new bit of content to be experienced.   We could come into this restaurant much earlier, and we did to get the recipe book from the chef. But we can’t actually use the restaurant properly until after the Eclipse. “Huh? Okay. Yes, please do.”Guinness: “Certainly, sir. This way, please.”  As you might expect, all of these options teach us new cooking recipes. But it’s not as simple as other restaurants: here, the staff and clientele of Chez Snobbe will judge us based on what we buy. We start with the cheap option.  Lang takes a bite. “The flavour is so….rich…!”    Lang neither notices nor cares that they’re judging him, this is the best food he’s had. This course teaches us to make “Balsamic Veggies”. But he hasn’t seen nothing yet.  “*crunch crunch* Oops! I shouldn’t make so much noise in a place like this!”Maid: (Looks like he has money…But he certainly doesn’t have much class…!) Female Noble: (Well, he doesn’t look like he wandered in here by mistake…But he does look rather out of place…!) Guinness: (Well! That’s quite an expensive order he gave!) (This sure is elegant dining! And each bite fills my mouth with fantastic flavour!)Lang learns “Lobster in Wine” here.  On a random note, the maid’s name is “Neil”. I have no idea if this was intentional or a bad translation.  “*Munch munch* Wonder if I’ll be able to finish all of this myself?”Guinness: (Well! I guess you can’t judge a book by its cover!) Female Noble: (Could he be royalty, I wonder…? Maybe I’d better make his acquaintance…?) Manager Broam: (How can he afford that?! I wonder what noble family he’s from…? I’d better watch myself. Can’t make any social faux pas!) (This is incredible! It’s so delicious, I’m trembling from head to toe!)We learn “Heavenly Beef” from this. Heavenly Beef is a fantastic recipe that buffs a lot of stats well and has no drawbacks like Kazan Curry. This will be my staple dish for most of the playthrough. You might be wondering how Darakin is faring with this freaky supernatural event. Well, they’re doing absolutely fine. Yes, everyone’s commenting on it and being a little freaked out, but aside from that, you’d think nothing had happened. This is going to be a running theme in this game. With meaningful content in Darakin done, we head to Mt. Gabel.   The terrifying power of the Black Sun: bringing us slightly more powerful pallet swaps of all the enemies we’ve seen before.   Gee, I wonder what could have happened? What dastardly knave could have swept in and taken everything Kazan owns? We’ll have to follow a trail of clues to figure out who took our precious Mizel Red Sand….  No, really!? I get that some poo poo has happened in the character’s lives since Kenjiro was allowed to take everything, but from the player’s perspective, this is really tedious. We know Kenjiro was told he could take everything, and if you talk to him, he specifically mentions taking the Mizel Red Sand. The game has marched us up to Kazan’s shack, exposed us to boring pallet swap enemies, all so we could find out what we already knew and proceed with the plot accordingly. “Ha ha ha! That explains everything!” “So what are we going to do? We can’t make it through the woods without Mizel Red Sand, right?” “Hmm…” “I think the only thing we can do is start looking for Kenjiro.” “Let’s just hope he hasn’t sold it already…” “You’re right, Maya. Now where would he go…Somewhere with a lot of people.”Gee, I wonder where they could be talking about?  Man, who would have thought he was in Darakin? I was so sure he’d be in Nohl…. “Hey, Kenjiro….About that stuff I gave you the other day…Remember that thing called Mizel Red Sand?” “That was a surprise, Kazan! The town alchemist was just beggin’ me to sell it to him!” “What!? D-Did you sell it?” “I wouldn’t let it go that easily! It’s worth a fortune! Why, look, I have it right here!” “That’s a relief! Kenjiro, would you give it back to me…?” “No siree! You gave it to me, so it’s mine now!” ”Alright, let’s beat him up and take it.” ”You’ll have to tango with all the guards, kid!” ”Easy, we slaughtered our way through Castle Doplin TWICE!” ”We can’t, Lang! Stealing is wrong!” ”But the fate of the world is at stake! And he took it from Kazan first!” ”Sorry Lang, we have to do this legit.” ”Alright, alright… We really need it. We’ll pay you as much as we can.” “No! I won’t give this here up, no matter how much y’all pay!”  “Listen up! I’ll give you the Mizel Red Sand!” “But! I want Lyps’ Tear in return!” “Lyps….teardrops…?” “The Lyps are as hard to find as they are famous.” “They only shed tears from those lovely eyes once a year! It’s incredibly rare!”First, Lyps don’t appear to have eyes, second, every time you beat one, you get a Lyps’ Tear. If we didn’t have one already, we’d have to buy a special item from Kenjiro called “Blowfish Weed” that would let us attract Lyps encounters. They’re usually very rare, and you need enough agility to hit them before they run. However, I already killed a Lyps while grinding in the Forest Maze, so we skip that whole diversion.  “Oooo! Aha!! How’d you come upon that there!?” “It don’t matter. We’re tradin’!”You get a choice on whether to trade or not, but why wouldn’t you? You can’t proceed any other way. “Darn! I was looking forward to sellin’ this baby, but…” ”I just want to take this moment to mention most merchants wouldn’t offer us all that much for a single Lyps’ Tear and we have WAAAAAY more money than it’s worth that you could have extorted us for. So you just lost out big time on this transaction, bitch.” ”Wait, no! Guards, I’ve been robbed!” We can still use Kenjiro as a merchant. He sells a little bit of everything. Now, if we leave Darakin and go right back in…  Leon: “You have to do this step quickly. Or else the pasta gets soggy.” “Maya, what are you doing?” “Leon is teaching me how to cook.” “He’s showing me how to make Pasta Carbonara. I’ll make it for you next time, Okay, Lang?”Naturally, Maya learns the Pasta Carbonara recipe.  Kazan fumes at Kenjiro from the backend of town. Now, finally, we head to the Forest Maze. Now Playing – Lost Forest   “…But we should still proceed cautiously. That black sun may have affected this forest also…”We only get so far into the Forest Maze before we’re faced with a tutorial fight.  Not even bosses are immune to pallet swapping. The Gather Crab is now reduced to a generic enemy in blue.  “Kazan…” “Maya you just watch. Lang, this will be a good test for the new Art.” “We will synchronize our moves for a massive attack. Are you ready?”And so begins our tutorial on Variable Arts. Variable Arts are by far the most damaging attacks we have available to us except for one set of Arts that I won’t mention for some time (even though we could use them right now). Variable Arts work by inputting in specific sequences with two characters, who will then perform a joint attack. It has to be the exact sequence, and you cannot use any other Arts with them, but they more than make up for that in sheer power. Each character comes with an A and B type Variable Art. The purpose of this is that one character must perform their A type Art and the other their B type Art. If you use both of the same type, then no Variable Art eventuates and you just perform a few regular attacks. You must also have 80 AP on each character to pull it off. Click here to see our first Variable Art show. This attack does 28000 damage to the Loghart Crab. This is far beyond what any character can do individually, and beyond what they can all do attacking in a single round. And of course, Variable Arts only require two characters, so the third can keep attacking or do something else.  “This…I never knew!” “That’s what you get when you combine our strength! I expect that you can do it with others as well!”Variable Arts can be performed by every character, and they all have A and B type Arts. I’d show off the others we could do here, but I’ve decided to leave that until we have every character.  So here we have pallet swaps of the Dino Gols and…  Holy poo poo, that’s a new, unique enemy! How long has it been since we’ve seen one of those? Probably Doplin Castle and Kabel Ruins… Hanged Snails (how the hell is it a snail?) largely just hit you either regularly or with fire attacks. They can also cause Venom.  Here we are ambushed by Bean Cannons, pallet swaps of Bean Guns. They can shoot out “Mrs. Beans” to attack us, who are pallet swaps of the old Bean enemies. We don’t see this happen despite them getting the jump on us, as they mysteriously decline to act and then get wrecked next round.  Kocus Karacas’ are immune to Origin attacks, and have a suicide attack that denies you any reward for their deaths. But we kill them easily enough with Arts for that to matter.  Pallet swaps from the sewers. Boring. Anyway, you’re probably wondering about the dungeon itself. The Forest Maze has no real puzzles like any other dungeon, but its mazelike quality might keep you wandering around if you don’t know where to go. Fortunately, I’ve been through enough times to know exactly where to go.  First we get on this log.  Then have Galea smash this log.  And then it’s an effectively straight path to the exit. The Forest Maze has plenty of treasure to find. Most of it is unremarkable, but you can get a "Scroll of Water" that teaches Maya a new Hyper Art. We move on to Yuno. Now Playing – Everyday Tranquillity     “This is…snow…?” “It’s colder here than in Lang’s town, but it’s warmer inside! Let’s go in the house now.” ”Lang’s town? I'm right here, you know...”Maya runs towards her house premptively.   “I don’t…I don’t deserve to enter this village…I bet the other villagers would agree.” “If only…I had noticed your power a little sooner…” “Then you… wouldn’t have lost your family and your friends…” “I think…the village will forgive you, Kazan.” “Let’s go inside.” “Wasure Sato Yuno”. Exactly as translated.    “I’m sorry for making you worry! I’m sorry!” ”Shouldn’t I be the one apologising…?”Ruth: “Maya…You…What happened to you?! I thought you lost your voice…” Mick: “This is great!! Talk to me, Maya!” Rona: “Congratulations, Maya!”  Simba: “Didn’t you know how lonely little Maya was without you?” “I…I don’t deserve to live in this village…” “I couldn’t save Maya’s family…or the villagers.”Simba: “Hey Kazan, nobody could have stopped it. It wasn’t your fault…” Hilda: “That’s right! Kazan! And you saved Maya!” Hilda’s the woman near Simba. Hilda: “Nobody blames you! So why should you leave the village?” Hilda: “You and Maya…And everybody in the village! I feel like you’re all family!” Hilda: “So what’s the point of being family if we are all separate, huh? Am I right, honey?” Simba: “That’s right! Isn’t that why you came back, Kazan?”   “No. Um…He’s my…student, I guess. His name is Lang.” ”You guess? Have you NOT been teaching me this whole time?”Hilda: “Oh! I was shocked. I thought you’d had a kid!” Hilda: “You’ve had a hard time, haven’t you? We’ve had nothing but trouble since the black sun appeared!” Hilda: “It’s not an exciting village, but make yourself at home.” Simba: “Let’s have a drink for old time’s sake! Promise me, Kazan!” Hilda: “*sigh* Just like a fish!”   “You’re right. I was…being silly.”I think Legaia 2 wanted to win awards for fastest resolutions of plotlines. “Let’s…let’s go back home now.”The screen fades to black as they all go to Maya’s house.  “The house was a pigsty when Kazan lived here!” “Kazan used to live in this house. I’m renting it now, though.” ”Renting? What, did someone buy your parents’ house and make you pay rent!?” ”Yuno law is…complex…” “Hey, Maya? What’s wrong?” “Nothing!” “The room Kazan used to live in is spare, but…There’s nothing there except a bed.” “Okay. Lang, go ahead and use the room.” “What are you going to do, Master?” “Anyway…Can we see Reym tomorrow? I’ve been invited to Simba’s home.” “And Maya just came back, too! She needs to catch up…” “Eh…But…Um…” “All right, then! The decision’s made!”Kazan gets up and leaves.  “I guess Kazan is happy to be here, too, though he doesn’t show it…” “Um…Lang…” “Hm?” “I’m going out, too. I want to visit my parents’ grave and tell them I’m back.” “Oh okay. Don’t worry about me.” “Okay. See you later!” We are now left alone to wander Yuno at our leisure. In Maya’s house, we learn about a new minigame.  We can grow plants and flowers to gain items when they’re ready to harvest. As far as I can tell, all you need to do is use certain methods to grow the plants and then just hit the “check” option. There’s no need to wait or fight battles, you just do it. Some plants respond better to different acts, like watering more (or less) and using fertilizer. It’s all pretty standard. While there’s probably some nice stuff we can get out of this, I’m not going to do much with it unless I find out there’s some infinity weapon locked behind it. It’s tedious as all hell. Anyway, now that we can access the Yuno shops, I’m going to detail a really broken accessory you can make at this point. It’s not my original idea, mind you (it comes from Shotgunnova’s walkthrough), but I’ll tell you guys all about it anyway. Follow these steps to make it: -First, buy a bunch of Passion Necklaces, Tough Necklaces, and Babble Necklaces. -Combine the Passion and Tough Necklaces to make Assault Bangles. -Combine the Assault Bangles with Babble Necklaces to make Hero Bangles. -Combine Hero Bangles with Babble Necklaces to make Bonus Bangles. -Combine Hero Bangles with Bonus Bangles to make Beggar’s Bangles. -Combine Beggar’s Bangles with Babble Necklaces to make Power Necklaces. Power Necklaces give you many useful skills, but chief among them is “Art Attack Up”, which confers a 50% power boost on every Art hit. That means if you use an Art like Wind Blade for Lang, which hits three times, he will have a 50% power increase on all three hits. This applies to every Art based hit you make, so you can wildly increase the damage you do every round, and it will only go higher as you get more Art Blocks. This skill will trivialise much of the game, more so than it already has. You’ll find out just how much over the next few dungeons.  The woman running the food shop gives you a new recipe book. Like the others, this teaches new recipes to every character we can get.   ”Hasn’t she been unable to speak for some time?”Faldo: ”Yeah, that’s how we hooked up! I said “Say nothing if you want to be my girlfriend”, and she didn’t!” ”Genius.” If we go to Simba’s house before we’re meant to, we get a brief scene of Kazan knocking them back with Simba. Simba: “I know. I know! No need to hold back! You’re our guest!”  We learn that Simba was Kazan’s pupil too. For a man who “always preferred to use his fists”, Kazan sure had a lot of swordsmen for pupils. Anyway, what we’re meant to do is go eavesdrop on Maya. Now Playing – Maya  “Father…I won’t…run away anymore. I won’t curse myself anymore!” “This power of mine…It will come in handy some day. I’m sure of it now.” “So don’t worry about me, mother and father…” Maya rejoins us. Now we have to go pick Kazan up from Simbacare.    Now Playing – Barracks Simba: “Ha, ha, ha! Oh, man! I’ll take care of him tonight! I’ll send him home by morning.” “Can’t be helped, I guess…” “Wander, wander…O’er the valley yonderrrrr! Ho, ho!” “Down on the border ‘tween….The north and south…Heeey! Hooo! Heeey! Hooo!”Kazan keeps drunkenly repeating his little song. There is naught to do but go back to Maya’s place and sleep.” As we sleep, however…  “If only I had noticed Maya’s power a little earlier…You wouldn’t have lost your lives.” “All I can do now…is apologize…” “All I can do…is to watch over that child in your stead…” We awaken the next day.  Oh but we will have the luxury of time. We will indeed… “Look who’s talking, Kazan! You were out all night!”Kazan flinches. “Hmph…That was then. This is now. Whatever. Let’s go and see Reym.”We head out the back entrance of Maya’s house and enter the cave.    Now Playing – Title (Quick note, this theme plays on the title screen of this game and Legend of Legaia)    “No…It looks human, but it’s a spririt.” “A spirit?” “Remember the Mountain Morg at Mt. Gabel? It’s like the Morg, a spirit. It can speak though.” ”…you think he’s mad I killed his fellow spirit…?” “You are…Lang, aren’t you?” “How do you know my name?” “Don’t be too surprised. I know almost everything about this world.” “The roots of this tree spread all over the world. And I can learn what’s going on from those roots.” “Reym…About the black sun…What’s the ‘Eclipse’ Avalon was talking about?” “The Eclipse is turning all living things into evil…darkness…chaos…” “Did that man, Avalon, make it happen?” “Yes and no…The answer is carved into this monolith. Behold…’The Source Forge.’” “The…Source Forge?” “The very creator of this entire world.” “The creator…The origin of our entire world…Can this really be?” “I understand how difficult it may be for you to believe.” “To prove it, I’ll show you a memory. My memory…of this world of yours.”  Now Playing – Beast of Darkness “It’s the core of the Source Forge. It’s the place where all life is created.” “The Source Forge wasn’t always here.” “At first, this world contained nothing. And then, three sources of power were born. They were…”    You know these colours/elements line up perfectly with Legend of Zelda’s goddess trifecta. “Their power melded together and the Source Forge was born. The stones then created life and the Source Forge sent it into the world.” “This life that was sent forth continued to evolve and propagate, right up till the present.” “But the delicate balance of the Source Forge, that source of all life…was RUINED by HIM…!” “And that man has upset that precious arrangement!”   “So THAT’S what I saw in my dream that time!” “When the arrangement of the sacred stones was changed, the Source Forge began to run amok.” “It began trying to create a world full of evil and chaos, covering everything with the power of the Eclipse, born of the black sun.”   “Kazan…It is impossible for you. You cannot restore the Source Forge.” “Lang…Only you can restore the Source Forge…” “Me?!”  “The man at the chapel called Lang that, too…Star Shaper? What’s that mean?” “Power to manipulate the Source Forge. Power to shape the future of this planet…Only you and Avalon possess the power…” “Where did this power come from? Tell me! What am I?!” And there it is, dear readers. The ugly truth. Lang is a Chosen One™. “Born…from the Source Forge? “The Source Forge was created with the desire to promote life on earth…” “Or…perhaps it was the will of the sacred stones, the creators of the Source Forge.” “The life that sprang from it spread across the world, creating more life over the ages.” “From a realm devoid of time, the Source Forge has stood watch over the cycle of life.” “But unforeseen seeds formed during the cycle of death and rebirth. I speak of…the Mystics.” “Beings who were a mixture of the forces of nature and humanity…Were these Mystics born to create a world full of hope, full of dreams? Or…Were they born to destroy the very world the Source Forge had created?” “The Source Forge became interested in the Mystics. It even hoped…that the Mystics might guide its world to a better place…” “You and Avalon have the power to use the Source Forge. The future of this world is in your hands.” “But…Avalon…He has come to hate this world. I think his sad experience of being a Mystic has changed him…” “This world is being consumed by ruin…And the only one who can stop it is you!” “You are…the only hope! Lang!” “I still can’t…It’s hard to believe I was created by the Source Forge…” “I don’t feel like I’ve got any special power, either.” ”Except for my incredible sword talents and athletic abilities.” “But…I’m sure about one thing…” “Lang! “Lang..!” “How can I…restore the Source Forge to the way it was?” “If the Pyrolith, Aqualith, and Aerolith are properly arranged within the core of the Source Forge…You can reset the Source Forge…And remove the black sun as well, Lang…!” “But to do so…First you must collect these three sacred stones.” “Avalon may try to stop you. You must resist his limitless power, and win…” “Reym. Why are we here, then? To fight against him at Lang’s side!” “Lang…You won’t be alone. We’ll all fight together to save the world we live in!” “Master…Maya…” “I knew it…Our meeting was no accident. We were fated! Fated to fight together against Avalon! To save the world!” “We won’t let this world be destroyed! And I’ll change the Source Forge back to the way it was!”  “The power of the Eclipse…Is stealing life-force from my tree…” “Reym! Hold on!” “Forgive me….I cannot remain…In this world for long…I will leave my memories in this monolith.” “Only Mystics…can locate the sacred stones…by touching this monolith.” “The Source Forge resides inside…a tower leading to the center of this world. The Demiurge Tower…” “The sacred stones…Will guide you there…”  “Perhaps we’ll see him again…After we restore the world, Kazan.” “Master, Maya…Let’s go!” “Right! We’d better find out where those sacred stones are located. Try touching the monolith, Lang.”      “About the Aqualith, Lang, you…” “Kazan…" “Let’s go back to Nohl. We need that Aqualith to save the world!”And finally, we are done. We can leave. Holy moly, was that an exposition dump! We learned so much…and god how it all sucks. One of the biggest problems with this game is it’s absurdly cliché plot, and this is the most cliché reveal of all. Lang is the Chosen One, the only person in the world who can stand up to the EVIL Avalon and restore the world to normal. Said world was created by a sentient rock formation that also created Lang AND Avalon because of destiny and balance and whatever. Also Kazan and Maya are here because of DESTINY. DESTINY DESTINY DESTINY DESTINY DESTINY! …I want to share with you part of an interview with the script writer for Legend of Legaia, Hidenori Shibao. Shibao: “When I started writing the scenario for Legaia I had several goals. One was the elimination of "legends". Now, there may be people who think, "What?!" Because the game is called "Legend of Legaia", but this title was not my idea…. Personally I think there's a phenomenon called "Nausicaa syndrome", as in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. In other words…a legend or prophecy is introduced suddenly at the opening of the story. Because it's an absolute story transmitted into the world, it can't be denied. At the game's end, after various twists and turns, the hero who was at the mercy of fate ends up as a form of legend themselves. It's a common theme, right? Using a fixed form of story, such as fulfillment of a legend, I know it's convenient but...don't you get bored with it? So I wanted to avoid it.” Think on this, and think of what this game has just told us. Join me next time, where we do something incredibly stupid, and recruit our 4th party member. LJN92 fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Apr 27, 2021 |
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Apr 27, 2021 01:04
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Heck yeah, bad decisions AND new party members!
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Apr 27, 2021 01:58
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CmdrKing posted:Heck yeah, bad decisions AND new party members! Oh I cannot wait until the next update. This game goes places when it comes to party members 
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Apr 27, 2021 02:16
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LJN92 posted:The Forest Maze has plenty of treasure to find, but none of it is terribly important. No Hyper Art scrolls or anything like that. What a suspiciously specific statement. There's Absolutely Zero chance that you might be remembering something else? Also, now that you've unlocked Yuno, there's a method of infinite money that's even faster than just having Darakin open. I'd need to try to find my note card about the method.
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Apr 27, 2021 02:58
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LJN92 posted:I don’t know if I mentioned this already, but whenever you go into a town, your party members will go stand in different areas and have things to say. This is distinct from actual scenes as they say these lines every time you go in, and will stand in the same position (although it changes as the story progresses). This is a great way to check if a character has content at any given time, because you’ll figure out they’re not in their usual spot. This reminds me of the Star Ocean games and the PA system, where you can split the party up in town and it's similar in that if they have no scenes they'll be in a specific spot, so if you don't see someone where they normally stand it means there's a scene involving them somewhere. quote:So aside from the name (thanks for the confirmation, Polsy!) this is the other reason why I'm pretty sure Reym is a reference to Rem. In the original Legend of Legaia Ra-Seru lived inside in the Genesis Trees scattered around the world. Since Rem was part Seru, his counterpart in Legaia 2 living in a tree seems like enough of a reference.  quote:You know these colours/elements line up perfectly with Legend of Zelda’s goddess trifecta. They also almost line up with the colors/elements of the Ra-Seru the main characters used in the original Legaia. Meta was red and was fire, Terra was green and was wind, and Ozma was blue but he was lightning, not water.
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Apr 27, 2021 03:08
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Magic Fanatic posted:What a suspiciously specific statement. There's Absolutely Zero chance that you might be remembering something else? Actually yeah, I just made a mistake. I mistook the name of one of Maya's Hyper Art scrolls for a generic spell scroll. Mea culpa. I'll update that accordingly.
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Apr 27, 2021 03:10
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So we just finished getting the Aqualith back and now we're planning on yoinking it? Cool.
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Apr 27, 2021 03:42
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Chapter 11 - My Sharon-a Where we last left off, we just got an almighty exposition dump from Reym, learned the origin of the world, and how Lang was born from a sentient rock formation and the only one with the power to defeat Avalon, also sired by said sentient rock formation. No, really. We have now been tasked with gathering the sacred stones and using them to restore the Source Forge (the sentient rock formation) to normal, having been corrupted by Avalon. But FIRST! We’re going to piss around on side content. Yuno’s up first.  Remember Miura? He was the bloke that gave told us about the Forest Maze before we even went to Mt. Gabel. Apparently, despite selling us THE Mizel Red Sand, Kenjiro actually had more of it to shell out to suckers like Miura. Miura: “But…Now that I’ve used all the Mizel Red Sand how will I get back…?” Miura says this, but you never need to use more of it to get in or out of the Forest Maze.  Cocky Lang is nice to his allies, so we say “It’s just like home”. “Yeah. I’ve got my own room here, so it feels like home.” “Really? Well, then. Let’s live here together! What do you say?” ”Maya the loving apocalypse is nigh, what the hell are you on about?” “But…You just said it felt like home!” ”I mean it’s cozy and all, but still, this seems like a BAD time.” “Ha! Did you think I was serious? I was kidding! It was a joke!” ”Dammit, Maya.”In case you’re wondering, where I’ve injected new dialogue, canon Lang just stammers like a moron. Not terribly interesting. Let’s hear some campside chats. Faldo and Maya  “What?” “What’s wrong? You always played with him when you were little!” “He even told me he would marry you, Maya.” “So, what’s up with you two? Anything new? You saw him in Yuno, right?” “Stop it, Kazan! You don’t have to talk about him right now!”We get a dialogue choice. You either don’t care, sort of gossip about it, or act like this means Maya’s closed off to a relationship with you. Really, Lang’s all like “I got too excited…Man, do I feel dumb.” But our choice is to be nonchalant.   “So what’s going on, Maya? Anything new?” “I hate you, Kazan! Just leave me alone! “What? Why’d she get so mad all of a sudden?”Interior Design  “Sure you can. The room’s been looking pretty empty ever since we got rid of Kazan’s furniture.” “I’m so sad…I finally return to Yuno, and I find someone threw out my favourite mask!” “Well, it was so dirty, Kazan!” “Also, I didn’t know when you were coming back. I had no choice.” “I can’t believe it…Lang, you’d better watch out, too.”You can actually do this without even seeing this chat, but basically you can get certain items to decorate the room Maya gave you with. It’s mostly functionless, except if you gather all the furniture, you get a special end game item out of it. But that’s way too tedious for my tastes, and we really won’t need the item she’s going to give us. Lang’s Cold “Aah….Atchoo! *snort!* Looks like I caught a cold.” “Because you’re so lightly dressed. It’s snowing. Don’t underestimate nature.” “I know, but…Atchoo! Aargh…I have a pounding headache…” “Hold on…I have some cold medicine. Here you go.” “Ahhh…Thanks, Maya.” “Don’t push yourself. Keep warm, sleep well, and you’ll feel better in the morning!” “…I hope so.”Reym’s Fate “Poor Reym…I never thought he’d go before I did…” “But I bet Reym will come back after that black sun is gone and the world is back to normal…Don’t you think…?” “We’ll be able to see him again, Kazan…Right?” “Yeah…I bet you’re right. I don’t know if we can do it or not…but we’ve gotta try to fix things. For his sake, and for our own sakes, too.”Lang’s Feelings (I understand how he feels. After everybody was so happy about getting the Aqualith back! Now we’ve gotta take it away again.) (Poor Lang…!)We now head back to Nohl.  ”gently caress you, Dein! You’re making this harder than it already is!”Dein: ”Wait, poo poo, did you really bring back another disaster…?”  ”loving Dein.”Hawke is the man we need to talk to about taking the Aqualith.  “Well, Hawke…Actually…”The screen fades to black as Lang explains.  Hakwe: “…And in order to save the world, you need the Aqualith…Am I right?” Hawke: “So the goings-on at Hunter’s Wood are happening elsewhere…All that destruction…” ”Actually there’s not much destruction at all. People just keep whining about aggressive monsters.”Hawke: “…Lang. As I have said this to you before, the thing that keeps all of us here alive…is that lake. And the Aqualith.” Hawke: “You know that. That is why you brought the Aqualith back to Nohl. Isn’t that right?”   There’s actually quite a few residents of Nohl missing from this picture.  Hawke: “It concerns Lang taking the Aqualith with him.”   Koko: “Is all the water going bye-bye?” Monde: “And what is your opinion on all this, Hawke…?” Jill: “We’ll have to go through a drought all over again?” Elukk: “No, Lang! Don’t take our Aqualith!!”  “But…our sun…I need the Aqualith. The world won’t return to normal without it.” Dein: “Don’t you see?!?! This guy here, loooooves to make people really happy, and then screws them in the end.” Dein: “Only thinking about himself…He doesn’t care about you or me, as long as he’s happy. That’s who he is!”  Hawke: “Dein…Were you not rescued from Hunter’s Wood by Lang?” Hawke: “What did you do after that man seized the Aqualith? What were ANY of us doing then?” Hawke: “Nothing! We had all given up. We always let it be, saying that it was meant to be.” Hawke: “But Lang…You were different. The morning after you heard that the Aqualith had been stolen, you left Nohl to get it back…all alone.” Hawke: “You didn’t know how it would end. But you didn’t fear the unknown. You kept your faith. I admire that.”  Hawke: “That black sun…To get rid of it, you need the Aqualith….that is what you said, right?” Hawke: “Of course, it is hard for us to lose the Aqualith…But perhaps it is time to stop fearing change, and stand up to it, boldly.”   Turns out Galvan and Nancy were just waiting for the right moment to make a dramatic entrance. “That’s right! Anyone got a problem with that, you’ll settle it with me!” Dein noticeably jumps at Galvan palming his fist. “Lang, there are certain things that only you can do, right? Well then, go do them!” No, as is typical in this game, you can’t actually refuse. The other option just has Lang dither. This is the stupid decision I mentioned last update. Everyone’s acting like it’s not that big of a deal, but this just seems ridiculous in the face of how bad it got when the Aqualith was first taken. The game went to every length to illustrate how Nohl needed the Aqualith, even making it clear that it just doesn’t rain much in Nohl. We heard about how the crops were dying, and everyone had to ration water. How can we be expected to turn around and act like it’s no big deal? This is all exacerbated by the Eclipse. Hunter’s Wood is now full of super charged monsters, the same kind that are allegedly threatening Darakin’s walls and causing much grief for Yuno’s hunters. It will only be harder for Nohl’s Vigilance Corps to get to other sources of water. In theory, they should be lucky just to defend their wimpy palisade, let alone do everything while the town dehydrates to death. Now of course we do need the Aqualith eventually, but do we need it now? There’s two other stones we need to get, and they’re all in different parts of the world. We are going to have to go on an epic journey to search for them, and all that time, the Aqualith is just going to sit in our hyperspace pockets with all the Heal Leaves I’ll never use again. It’s not like travelling back and forth is presented as difficult; all we need to do to go from Nohl to Yuno, which is technically the span of the continent, is click on the map. Why couldn’t we just come back for the Aqualith later? The best reason to do this I can think of is to keep the Aqualith safe. Avalon gave it away, but we don’t know if he’ll change his mind. Velna’s also keen to kill us, and she can teleport. Doplin is also still interested in getting the stones to become a god. But this isn’t even brought up. The game just acts like you must have the Aqualith on your person to proceed. The villager’s lives are at stake here, and no real thought it put into the dilemma. They just decide they’ll gung ho their way through the crisis.    “But in order to stop the black sun, and return the world to normal, I…I need the Aqualith!!” Jill: “This is hard on us…but it’s even harder on you, Lang.” Yes, it’s very hard for him to jeopardize the entire village so he can put the Aqualith in a sack for a year. Joanne: “Not having the Aqualith is a problem, but if the world disappeared there would be no point in having it anyway…” Koko: “Lang, take care of the Aqualith, okay?” Monde: “We can’t fear change…You know what, that’s true. We can’t just sit around and mope!” Elukk: “Lang! You’ll come back, won’t you?”   Galvan makes an extremely subtle head gesture that’s hard to adequately convey via screenshots.  Hawke: “That’s a reflection of your consideration for this town, and for all who live in it…” Hawke: “Come back whenever you want to. This is your home…” And now we’re free to leave.  We find Galvan making Dein do some work.  “I’m not worried at all. That’s because I know you’ll fix the problem, Lang.” WWCLS: What Would Cocky Lang Say? “Of course not. I will do something about it. Just relax and leave it to me.” “Wow, you’re pretty confident, Are you 100% sure, Lang? It’s not like you!” ”…have you had you had your head up your rear end this whole time?” “*giggle* I’m only kidding!...We’re counting on you, Lang.”Leaving triggers a scene with Maya and Kazan.  “I don’t know about the Aerolith…but the Pyrolith is a volcanic rock, right? It’s probably on Drakonia…” “Hmm…I’ve heard that to the southwest lies the volcanic island, Drakonia…Let’s go and take a look.” “First, we’ll need a boat. South of here, there is a port city called Tanza. We’ll pick one up there.”Kazan doesn’t bother mentioning that’s where he’s from, despite doing so earlier. “For that we’ll have to pass south of Darakin, through Kravia.”We can have another camp chat after leaving.  “Don’t worry so much, Lang. People are stronger than you think. I’m sure they’ll find a way to survive on their own.” “And if we don’t do something about that black sun, everybody will die sooner or later, anyway.” “Yeah…I know that…But still…” “Poor Lang…”Let’s go back to Nohl for a quick bit.  “Yes, but this way it soaks up the flavour, and tastes better.” “Hm. But too much flavour isn’t always a good thing either.” “It won’t be too much, it’ll just be richer. Unless you understand that difference, you won’t make a good cook!” “…I still think my way is better.” “Well! You’re quite stubborn, aren’t you, Maya?” “Wha…ME?!?” “Right. It’s best to ask a third person at times like this.”The screen turns black like it’s a blind taste test. (gobble, gobble…Did Maya make this one? The taste is subtle, but you can tell a lot of work went into it.) *gobble* *gobble* (…and this one must be Nancy’s. It tastes stronger, but it’s pleasant somehow…Maybe because I’m used to it…) Unfortunately for Nancy, Maya is a party member. “Hm…let’s see…I guess it would be Maya’s dish?” “What!! What’s wrong with mine? I’m the one who feeds you every day!” “B, b, Because! Maya’s tasted as if a lot of effort went into it. Like she takes cooking seriously…” “Lang…thanks…” “Hmph! If I actually put effort into it, I could make something really amazing! …You’ll see!” “I could too! You’ll see!”Whatever is chosen, Maya gets the “Dogged” nickname, described as being for someone “who is focused on winning”. Now the plain interpretation of that is that she wants to win the cooking contest, but given how much both girls want to jump Lang’s bone, well… We now decide to move on with the plot.   “Jiyuu Toshi Karabia”. The translation is accurate. Worth noting that despite being a “Free City”, Kravia is very obviously controlled by Darakin.  Guard: “By proclamation of the new bishop!! From now on, we can’t let you through this checkpoint without a Kravian Pass from the new bishop!” Gunther: “You’ve gotta be kidding!! To hell with this new bishop! Why can’t we just use our permits like we used to?!” Guard: “These are the new bishop’s orders!! We can’t let anybody…NOT A SINGLE PERSON…through this gate without a Kravian Pass!” Jon: “Hey, come on! You know me! I work at the inn. You can let me through!...Can’t you?” Guard: “No one goes through without a Kravian Pass!! Kravian Passes are issued at Doplin Castle, in Darakin! If you want to go through, you’ve got to get a Kravian Pass!!”  ”Alright, let’s bust through…” ”Lang, no! We’ve been over this!” ”Do NOT tell me you’re bringing up the overconfidence thing again!” ”We must do this legit. We must go and get a pass.” ”I swear, if we end up carving a bloody path through the castle AGAIN…”Our only choice is to leave for Darakin.  Male Voice: “I never said any such thing! Give up on it!” We hear this exchange as we pass the Green Lynx Inn. For now, we decide to ignore it.  Guard: “You want a Kravian Pass, too? But even if you apply for one now, it’ll take 2 or 3 years…Maybe even longer…!” Guard: “Hey, you! Don’t fool around chatting! Just do you duty!” ”….should I even bother suggesting?” ”We MUST play it safe! The ruins are the ONLY way!” ”Fine, whatever, I guess I’ll look forward to killing another big knight guy….”As you might have guessed, our only choice is to go visit the inn.  Male Voice: “drat it, woman! Stay there if you want. But get it through your head that I just can’t get one for you!” I presume they wanted to make sure the player couldn’t forget the inn was the place to go.       “What’s going on?”Joe: “Aw, she wants a Kravian Pass…I don’t mind her coming to me for help, but in this case, I can’t do anything for her…”  We know he can’t give us one, so maybe a little information could be useful. “What’s a Kravian Pass, anyway?”Joe: “It’s a pass you need to get through the checkpoint at Kravia. You used to have to have a permit, and they were really hard-nosed about it. But now you need a Kravian Pass!” “Where can we get one of these Kravian Passes?”Joe: “At Doplin Castle. That new bishop supposedly issues them personally.” “What do you mean, ‘supposedly’?”Joe: “As far as I can tell, not one single Kravian Pass has ever been issued…Looks like the new bishop…is trying to isolate Darakin!” “I see…Well, that certainly explains why not even you can get your hands one one!”Joe: “Exactly. I can’t do anything about this one…” “That’s awful! Why would he want to seal off the checkpoint?”Joe: “Who knows? All that trouble to seal the place off…Maybe they don’t want to let something out…? Anyway, there just aren’t any passes out there! It’s no use.”  Joe: “Nah, never mind! No need to answer that. It’s just that…If somebody could get into the castle, they could steal a Kravian Pass! If they exist, that is…If the passes don’t exist, they could see the bishop directly, make him issue one! Now, who could do that, I wonder…? It’s just an idea…” Suddenly, there’s a thumping noise.     “Who are you?”  Yes that’s right, Sharon here is our 4th party member. In my opinion, she’s the best drat party member in the game, both narratively and mechanically. I’ll go into more depth in the next update. Now Playing – Pirate’s Pride (The title’s a technical spoiler, and yet only Sharon thinks her piracy is a secret)  “I’m Sharon.” “I can’t get through the Kravian checkpoint, either. I’m stuck here.” “I asked Mr. Information there to get one for me, but he’s useless…”Joe: “Yeah, you might’ve asked me, but I never said I could do it…! You never give me any respect, but then when you need something, you come running to me!” “Are you still mad about that one incident? That was such a long time ago! You sure can hold a grudge!” “Um…”Joe: “Look, I’d really like to help you, for old times’ sake. Really! But I can’t get you something that doesn’t exist!!” “Excuse me, but…” “Um…, excuse me!!” “If you don’t have a Kravian Pass either, why don’t we try to do something about it together?” “Maya…?” “But she needs help! We have to do something for her.” ”Why ‘but’? I didn’t object…” “Yeah, but…We don’t have a Kravian Pass, either. We’ve got to go the castle and try and see the bishop or something. We’ve got to get one of those Kravian Passes!” “Let me come with you!” “What?! “That mark on your chest…Don’t tell me you’re a Mystic, too…!” “You…! You’re a Mystic, too?” There’s an awkward pause as Sharon realises what she said.   “…And I really wanted to see it, too….” “Anyway…You want to come to the castle with us, but it’s a pretty dangerous trip…And you can’t promise you won’t hold us back…” “If you don’t believe me, why don’t you take me along and see? If I do hold you back, just tell me to scram. I won’t mind.” Now it’s not our canonical choice, but let me just show you what happens if we say “Better not…” ”Creepy Lang” posted:
We choose to welcome her gladly.     “How are we getting into the castle?” “Where was that secret passage…? The first floor of that fancy hotel, wasn’t it…?” “That’s right! It said, ‘The Three Star Hotel.’” “Well, if you know where it is, then let’s go! Come on! Let’s move, people!”Joe: “Hold on. If you’re going to the castle, you ought to be careful. I’ve been hearing a strange rumor. The guards say the new bishop is strong, strong enough to rip up steel with his bare hands. Don’t know if you can believe what the guards say, but I still think you should watch it.” “You’re giving me free advice? That’s not like you!”Joe: “Well, you did come to me for help. I want to be of some use. Be careful, Sharon…”  ”…oh Holy Banderas, I LOVE you!” ”I get that a lot!”  I am going to leave this update here, as it’s pretty drat long as is. Join me next time, where we learn more about Sharon and meet the new bishop. By the way, care to guess who the new bishop is? It’s someone we know.
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Apr 29, 2021 11:24
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Yeah, it never made sense to me either why they HAVE to get the Aqualith right now. And agreed on Sharon being the best party member.
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Apr 29, 2021 11:58
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It's wild how lean this game is once you break down how many actual events/dungeons are in it. So much of the total playtime is just waiting for animations to play out as you slaughter enemies in one, maybe one and a half turns. Sharon's the best though, it's true.
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Apr 29, 2021 14:51
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And now we're gonna reuse the ruins dungeon hell yeah get the most out of those assets
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Apr 29, 2021 18:14
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I do love how Sharon glares at Lang when he walks in and Lang's just like "Whoa hey it's cool, we're cool."
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Apr 29, 2021 20:43
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Chapter 12 – Chapter 8 Redux Where we last left off, we learned we needed to get a Kravian Pass to pass through Kravia, and only the new bishop of Darakin had them. Lang’s Gang resolved to storm the castle once more, and now Sharon, the pi-I mean, honest young lady has joined our party. Our current objective is to reach the castle via the secret tunnel like we did last time. …..but first. Naturally, Sharon joining us means there’s going to be new side content. However, at this very point, there’s actually remarkably little to see.  Before we leave, Joe has some comments on our new friend. This gives her the “Miss Fickle” nickname.  Taking Sharon back to Nohl doesn’t invoke a special scene like it did for Maya and Kazan, but she’s still here and commenting on things.  Although a bit out of character, I decide to smash the snowman. There’s content here, you see. Whenever Lang attacks something outside battle, he performs this goofy animation.  First there’s a kick…   Then he elbow drops onto whatever he’s attacking. A bit excessive for a ruddy snowman to say the least.  “This is…t-too…cold…I’m going to f-freeze out here! Br-r-r! Hey! You okay?”We get a choice of dialogue. I choose to have reality ensue.  “Is…Is that so? I feel better…” “Ah, atchoo! So-so c-cold…”This is all the side content we have today. Like I said, not much. Now we’re going to actually head to the castle. Now, Maya and Kazan brought up the Three Star Hotel, but thankfully we don’t have to go back through the sewer entrance again.  We still have the exit that places us right next to the Kabel Ruins. Of course, this means we still have to traverse the Kabel Ruins. But that shouldn’t be too hard since we did it once already, right?      “Impressive…” “Voila! Now, aren’t you glad you brought me along? Heh heh heh heh!”As should be plain for all to see, the purpose of this retread of the Kabel Ruins is basically a big tutorial for Sharon. And in light of that, let’s talk all about Sharon, shall we? Sharon is our first new party member to actually use a weapon. Sharon has a special set of curved swords, like cutlasses and scimitars. These can be bought at shops, combined, and found like weapons for Lang. Sharon is an obscenely fast character. From now until the end of the game, she will routinely be the first to act, both among your party members and usually even out of all actors on the field. This makes her perfect for getting rid of troublesome enemies before they can use a nasty status attack or something. At this point in the game, she’s also our hardest hitter and has the most Art Blocks of anyone present, even Kazan. With the addition of cooking and a Power Necklace, Sharon will annihilate enemies of all kinds and commonly do 10k+ damage every round. Now I think it’s time you got a glimpse of her in action, eh? Click here to see Sharon’s Art Exhibition and her Origin in action. (Note I decided to record her Art exhibition elsewhere because my machine was feeling most unco-operative when I recorded the Kabel Ruins redux) If it wasn’t already clear from the way battles have been set up thus far, you can only have 3 characters on the field at any given time. That means we have to bench someone to use Sharon. At this point, Maya’s the one lagging behind in damage output, and seeing as Arrode has all-hitting attacks that can destroy enemy formations, it’s obvious who’s getting subbed out for Sharon. In case you’re wondering, no, it’s not possible to bench Lang. Anyway, enough about Sharon. Let’s talk Kabel Ruins 2.  Shadow Skulls are just pallet swaps, but Vurans are new. It can cause poison, and it likes to block a lot.  Kelv Sol Ma’s are a bit like the Baki in that there are variations on them. Kelv Sol Ma come with different coloured robes which indicate different elemental types; red for fire, blue for water, and purple for thunder.   Kelv Sol Ma’s have a range of all-hitting attacks, some of which cause nasty status effects. One causes “Confusion”, which prevents you from knowing what attacks you’re making (all the directional attacks are marked “?” and the input is randomized). Another induces “Seal”, which prevents the use of MP moves like Origins.  Alza Dorgue can put you to sleep, but otherwise they’re nothing special. Seeing as we already cleared Kabel Ruins before, this should be a simple waltz to the exit, right?  Wrong. All the puzzles that barred your path last time have reset and require new methods to solve them. New Explorer’s Notes have also spawned in certain places to help. In this room, where we needed to spell “SNAKE” on the pedestals, we now have to light every pedestal that doesn’t comprise “SNAKE”.  The puzzle to acquire the Explorer’s Note requires us to step on the pressure plates in the order denoted by the boxes.  We could have used this elevator the first time around, but without Sharon’s Arrode, we couldn’t proceed. Now it’s the only way, as an arbitrary wall blocks the route we used last time.  This puzzle called on us to light the closest pedestals last time. This is just that in reverse. We stop at the camp site outside where we fought Slogar last time.  “Hmm, I wonder. But no matter what he’s like, we’ve gotta be prepared.” “That’s right! We’ve GOT to get a Kravian Pass!” This is one of those puzzles where you change one thing, and the two next to it change status. I’m not sure if there’s a word for it, but it’s a common one in games with puzzles. All we have to do is mess around with it until all the pedestals are lit up.  The colour puzzle just calls on us to do ROY G BIV this time around.  If we light these candles with Galea…  These guys pop out. A lack of a visible health bar is usually reserved for bosses and such, but these enemies aren’t too hard to beat.  The trick here is to have only the special looking boxes touch the floor.   They all explode, revealing a chest with another Explorer’s Notes.  This puzzle calls on us not to simply light a set bunch of pedestals, but to light and extinguish them in a set pattern. Maybe I’m too stupid or something, but I couldn’t figure out how to glean the solution from the Note on this puzzle.  This area initially appears to be a dead end, but using Galea on the wall reveals an Arrode switch needed to get to the exit. There’s a few important items that I didn’t actually grab while I was first here. These include the “Book of Fear” for Sharon, teaching her the Hyper Art “Fearful Arc”. You can also grab the “Spell of Earth” to teach Maya “Dust to Dust”. There’s also a “Prison Key” that opens a room in Doplin Castle. This is the subject of a small side quest, and I’ll detail it later. We exit the Kabel Ruins and once again enter Doplin Castle.  Every encounter here involves a set of the various knight flunkies we’ve seen thus far. These ones we actually haven’t seen before, but the others are what you’d expect.  These are Raynof’s flunkies. Interestingly, they’re called “Crimson Warriors” despite explicitly calling themselves “The Red Knights” in Raynof’s cut scenes.  And these are the MIGHTY Balken’s subordinates, who stood around while he fought us. Note the image here is taken from someone else’s game, because I found it ridiculously hard to trigger an encounter with these guys. I didn’t see them the first time I went through, and I tried for way too long to get an encounter later. If you’re confused about their “Bronze” nature, I believe the idea is their armour has developed a patina. The fact that they’re “bronze” warriors makes the Doplin Knight scheme weird. You’re got bronze and gold knights, but no silver ones. The middle ones are “crimson”.  We can leave the castle just like before. This lets us rest, cook and prepare.  To find the new bishop, we have to head through this door, which was locked all the other times we were here.  Out here, we can already hear the sound of the next theme playing, albeit softly. Now Playing – Boss’ Pipe Organ       “What? What kind of way to speak to a bishop is that…?!”Now Playing – Holy Banderas Requiem He turns around.   I can’t tell if the game is making a jab at itself, given how easy it would be to forget who he is by this point. It’s Bubba, of course. Giving the wrong answer just makes him mad in different ways.     “When Doplin told me to look after the castle while he was gone, I was mad at him at first. But now I’d glad he did!” (*Snicker!* That Doplin said if we kept the checkpoint closed, these guys would show up here…And by golly, he was right!) “Doplin…?” “I don’t believe it…Don’t tell us you sealed off the checkpoint just so you could catch us…?!” ”…cause that actually makes perfect sense, seeing as I’m the ONLY threat to your master’s plans right now.” “No, no! Not ‘catch you’, exactly. More like ‘give you a good beating!’ I’m gonna avenge Elfin’s death!!”  “Elfin…? Oh, yeah! That monster I defeated in the canyon.” “Elfin wasn’t a monster!! You killed…You killed my true love…! Aw, drat you to hell!!”Cue boss fight.  Bubba is meant to be a pretty tough boss. While he can only attack one character at a time, his attacks are all capable of destroying you in one go. One of his attacks will even cause the “Bewitch” status, that causes the character afflicted to attack allies. …we destroy him in two rounds. He doesn’t even get a proper attack off. Variable Arts do a pretty large amount of damage regularly, but couple that with the Power Necklaces as well as a good cooking recipe (either Kazan Curry or Heavenly Beef), and you become a wrecking ball that can easily overcome bosses for some time to come. On the first round, after our Variable Art, we get this cut scene.  This is a “half way complete” kind of cut scene. On the first round.  He has to charge AP to use his attacks. This justifies how hard they hit, but as we’re destroying him this quickly, we never see him actually attack. Click below to watch the trivial nothing that is the Bubba Boss Fight.    “Elfin…!! *Sob!!* drat it…! drat it all…!!” Bubba punches the ground repeatedly.  It’s a bit hard to see, but Maya puts on her concerned face.  “He’s gone…Gone to that place beyond the twinkling stars in the sky…Gone to be with Elfin…” That’s Bubba shedding a single tear in Elfin’s memory, if it wasn’t clear.  “Dreaming of an unknown tomorrow…Traversing a wilderness of blood and pain…”   “I guess Doplin headed south, looking for something called a ‘sacred stone’.” “Bubba….What made you decide to tell us…?” “I, I dunno….It was just a whim, I guess…Instead of Doplin…I’d rather YOU guys…Nah….Never mind…” “….And here’s a little present from me. If you want to get through the checkpoint, take this.”   We get the Kravian Pass. Now we can leave and pass through Kravia. ”Wait a minute, guys, guys!” ”What is it?” ”We didn’t even fight a big bulky knight!” ”….did we need to?” ”It happened every time I came to this castle!” ”Lang, let’s just go…” ”I have such a bad case of blue balls right now…”In case you’re wondering, we’ll be seeing the third son of the Mesai Clan eventually. Just not in Doplin Castle. I will be leaving things on this note. Join me next time, where we pass through Kravia and the game opens up a lot more.
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May 1, 2021 03:02
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The final scene was worth it but frankly I'd still be pissed as hell they forced me on this drat detour in the first place.
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May 2, 2021 02:59
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Chapter 13 – Meandering Aimlessly Where we last left off, we had just defeated Bubba, who had been left in Darakin to ambush us. After defeating him, he decided he’d rather see us win than Doplin, and gave us the Kravia Pass we needed to move on with the plot. Now we can finally enter Kravia properly and move on to Tanza. But you know the drill by now.  “Okay, so turn down the heat…Put in the soy sauce. Got it!”Leon: “Just a little bit. Too much and it’ll be too overpowering. It’s important not to get carried away with seasonings.” “What are you doing, Master?” “Hey there, Lang. I wanted to try my hand at cooking, too. I’m having Leon teach me a dish.”Leon: “Nothing fancy. Just follow the steps, and anyone could do it.” “No, you’ve shown me some really great tips. Maybe I oughta think about being a chef someday…?”Kazan learns to make “Fried Vegetables” here. And that’s a wrap on side content before actually entering Kravia. I know, not much. Now Playing – Karavaia  Guard: “No one goes through without a Kravian Pass.”  Guard: “What…? Could that actually be…a Kravian Pass?! Yes, sir! We’ll open the gate right away, sir!!” Guard: “OPEN THE GATE!”[/b]     “To Tanza for a ship, huh…? And then what? Where are you planning on going by ship?”We get choices here. Either be honest, make something up, or “Not sure what to tell her”. Lying to her just has her see right through you, and Cocky Lang doesn’t plan on hiding info from Sharon.  “Never mind, Lang. Don’t tell her our plans. She wouldn’t understand.” “Hey, pardon me!! I’m not blind, ya know!! I know you guys are grappling with something…really big! I can tell that much without being told! Hmph!” For some reason, Kazan makes a weird gesture, like he’s pouting at Sharon’s reaction. “It’s like you guys have….oh, I dunno…some kind of huge mission you’ve gotta accomplish…” “What? R-Really…? Well…I guess I don’t mind…What do you think, Master?” Again with Kazan pouting like a child at Sharon’s presence. “…By the way, Master…Exactly how far is Tanza from here, anyway?” “Once we get through this town, it’s just south of here. But there are lots of shops here. We’d better take a good look around.”And there the scene ends. Kazan is correct: Kravia is home to a great many shops with a lot of different inventories. Some aren’t as useful as others, however.  This sign is completely irrelevant to anything, but I just want to mention it because having illegal immigrants suggests there’s another government besides Darakin’s but you’ll never see anything resembling a different authority in game. In the building next to the sign, we find a jail.  Guard: “That guy? He was a newcomer, but he thought he could get uppity with us!! So I threw him into solitary confinement! Had to teach him a lesson. Serves him right!” Kafil: “Rosemary…Karen…Forgive me…!” Kafil is the subject of a side quest that is initiated after getting a note from Castle Doplin. If I had remembered to grab it, we could have been doing it right now, but it’s actually a little better to do it later. In any case, I’ll detail this in a later update. Kafil will just have to sit tight for now. Across from the jail, we find a guild…  Jordan: “We get jobs in here from all over, from as far north as Darakin, to Tanza in the south. If you’re looking for work, you should ask at the counter here.”  Jordan: “You should try it. You won’t be able to get enough!” Dream Burger is basically like a fast food joint. We encountered them earlier when Nils gave us a Dream Shake.  Unlike other in game restaurants, the items they sell are actual, usable items and not opportunities for Lang to use his hyper gustatory memory to learn new recipes.  Whenever you buy something, Anne tries to push a meal deal onto you. It’s exactly what you’d expect: a slightly higher price to get more items with your meal.  This thing is basically one of those “Gachapon” machines that are common in Japan. Stick some money in, get a random doohickey. You can get some rare and useful stuff, but most of it is common garbage. You’ll go mad trying to get anything useful or interesting. I did this for nearly half an hour and 500000 gold (end game save) to get the one item I saw mentioned in a walkthrough that sounded interesting to get. It is called “Noa’s Adventure”. If you haven’t played Legaia 1, Noa was the default name for the female member of your party in that game. That would make this item a reference, so I figured it was worth a look at. Turns out it’s a furniture item so it’s meant to be placed in Maya’s room in Yuno, where we can take a look at it…  It’s…not the best of likenesses. This is what Noa looked like in Legaia 1…  (Image taken from Overrated Sage’s LP) Her hair was clearly a much darker shade of red/pink. Legaia 2’s image also makes her look like some kind of wizard girl whereas everyone in Legaia 1 was a martial artist. Just another reminder of what a shallow sequel this game is, I guess. Anyway, on with the game. Let’s find out about the actual meat and potatoes of this guild, shall we?  We can ask for an explanation, but this is all very basic and obvious. We just ask her for jobs and we pick one we like.  We can only pick one at a time. While a quest is taken, it actually disables the presence of your party members in towns and any scenes you might get at that point in time. I don’t actually remember this until after taking our first guild quest, “Tanza Tea Cakes”. Sonnet: “This is a quest from Yaksha. He runs a junk shop in Darakin. You just buy six of the Tanza Tea Cakes they sell in Tanza and deliver them to him. The reward money is 10,000 G.” You get an option to turn down a quest after asking about it, but how many people would decide only now to back out? “I’ll accept the quest.”Sonnet: “It’s a simple job. Just make sure you buy the right number.” You can come back and talk to Sonnet if you ever want a refresher on what you’re doing.  We decide to hear her secret. “A secret? A good one, huh…? All right.”Myulla: “ Hee hee hee! Wait till you hear this! It’s a REALLY good secret! Come out here so nobody else will hear…”  “WHAT? You’re joking…! NO WAY! I can’t believe it…! You’ve gotta be kidding me!”Myulla: “And that’s the whole secret! What do you think? Pretty amazing, huh?” Lang gets the “Alley Cat” nickname, denoting someone who has been in the alleys of Kravia. No, we will never actually know what Myulla told Lang.  You might not know it yet, but this crater is technically relevant to the plot.  Tokie: “I eat it all the time. That’s why I’ve lived to be a hundred years old! Hyuck hyuck hyuck! How about it? Just 200 G a bowl.” We will never see anything akin to a Sand Mole in this entire game. But anyway, we eat the stew.  The stew recovers your HP, but when you have the option of an inn or going to either Yuno or Nohl for free healing, why bother with this? You don’t even learn a recipe from it.  The game goes on about Kravia’s famous kabobs, but when you first come here, this dude blocks your way the whole time. When you get the opportunity to buy some, they’re just consumable healing items with no particularly special effects. We have better healing items by the time we get some.  Next to the jail is the Tavern Belisia. This lady offers us a menu akin to the Green Lynx Inn and Chez Snobbe. There’s recipes to learn here, but not from all or even most of the options. Only the Hamburger Steak and Yakitori Skewers are learned by Lang. If we try everything once, Lang gets the “Gourmet Kid” nickname.  On the other end of the tavern, this guy sells drinks. Lang being a minor, ordering any of the genuinely alcoholic drinks will just have Keiji remind Lang of his minority. As we try the different items, Keiji will tell us things like an old school Tavernkeep NPC.  Him telling us about Phorchoon makes it appear on the map. We can’t go there yet, but since Keiji told us, we’ll be able to go there before we’re supposed to later on.  You’ll notice Fujima here looks like Kenjiro. Kenjiro has a lot of brothers wearing the same style outfit that will come up later. However, despite purporting to act as a peddler, Fujima doesn’t sell you anything ever. He will come up again, however.  As you wander Kravia, some NPCs will shout things out unprompted. This can happen in other towns too. It’s a neat touch. Before we leave, there’s one random thing I want to show you.  For some reason, the devs programmed in a short animation for Lang pushing through a small gap between two people. There’s only a few places you’ll ever see him do this. It’s kind of neat, but also pointless, given how easy it is never to see it. Now let’s leave Kravia.     Yeah, so if you didn’t figure it out already, Kravia is the site of Lang’s dream, which was Avalon’s memory. Kravia is where an anti-Mystic pogrom occurred and Avalon blew a huge crater in the middle of town.   You’re probably wondering, was there a point to that scene? No. If we go back into Kravia after leaving, we can find someone new in the Guild.  Stekin: “Huh? Oh, these wanted posters? They show creatures you can get rewards for catching. You know, wanted monsters. Heh heh! Just looking at them gets me all excited! Gets me too scared to even go outside!” Despite mentioning these, we cannot actually pursue wanted monsters outside of the quests from Sonnet.  Stekin: “His name is ‘Silver Wolf, Stiel!’”  Stekin: “*sigh* He’s too cool! I want to be Stiel’s manager someday! That’s my goal. I’ll be famous!” Stekin then leaves.  Stiel has a number of things to say, including this… Stiel: “This town has changed. When I first got here, it was colder, more inhuman. It reeked with the smell of blood…” Given that the last great bloody event was Avalon’s little incident, that would suggest Stiel was here around or before that time. But Kazan suggested it was a long time ago…. Now let’s finally go to Tanza. Now Playing Tanza  “Minatochou Tanza”. Exactly as translated.   Macaque: “The ground shook, and a wave hit the town with a huge roar…Look, my house was destroyed, too…”  There were actually multiple NPCs in Kravia that told us about Tanza being flooded, so this only comes as a surprise to the characters, or a player who didn’t care to chat. “Perhaps….Could this have something to do with the Eclipse that created the black sun?” ”I dunno, man, sometimes these things just happen. Like my Wind Talisman did a sparkly thing and the gales disappeared from Gale Canyon, but I wasn’t sure if the two were connected, you know?” ”Indeed. Correlation does not always equal causation.” Terao: “Bro!!”   “Do you have any suggestions?”Vash: “I don’t know if it will help, but…There is a ship…But…” “What is it?! Spit it out!” ”God, I hate when people add a billion unnecessary ellipsis to their dialogue!” ”Lang…” Vash: “Rumor says, the pirates’ hideout is called Darek’s Haunt. But I doubt they’ll let you on board…” “Darek’s…Haunt?” “It’s a cave to the south of Tanza. Be careful…They’re pirates, you know.” “What are pirates?”  Vash: “They saved us so many times when we were in trouble. They’re like saviors for us sailors.” “Well, anyway…Why don’t we check out the pirates’ hideout, Lang?” “Yeah, let’s go.” ”If they don’t wanna lend us their ship, we can always just take it by storm.” ”HOW DARE-I mean, yeah, I guess we might have to, if they don’t…”Anyway, now we’re free to go where we please. There’s some stuff to check out in Tanza, obviously.  Buying stuff from this guy gets us this recipe book, teaching everyone Japanese themed dishes. This game references an “Edo” in a few places, like this book and the “Edo Steel” material. Edo is an old name for Tokyo, primarily from before the Meiji restoration. There is no Edo in game, of course, but to make things doubly confusing, “Edo Steel” is said to come from Kravia, while this book is about dishes popular with “South Edo natives”. But I guess that’s just me putting too much thought into this game again.  Meat Gyoza is a consumable item that is even less useful than almost everything we’ve picked up to date, healing a mere 1000 HP. PaiPai will turn up during a minigame later on, but I probably won’t show you her appearance because I cannot stand said minigame. But if you buy the Gyoza…   It’s odd how much effort goes into relatively pointless things in Legaia 2. On the note of minigames…   “Okayyyyy! We pose! My muscles sing! My muscles dances! LET’S MUSCLES!”  “Oooo? You did good! But me Sidejump Hero. I side-smash you! C’mon! Let’s side-muscle! No pain, no muscle!!!”Do you remember the side-jumping minigame from way back when we first left Nohl? Balzac here is the second tier of that game. Naturally, that makes him a bit harder than ol’ Maxell…  But he’s no match for the power of button mashing. We get the “Sidejump Hero” nickname and a “Rainbow Capsule” item. This is a usable item that gives a “random effect” each time it’s used. Other capsule/pill items like it do things like half/prevent damage or status ailments or boost attack, so it’s presumably one of those. We will never need this, since we have things we can rely on instead. Moving on from Phanta and Balzac, we enter a house on a hill.  Hugo here will buy any special monster items you’ve found at a higher price than regular merchants, so it’s worth holding onto them all until we reach him. You might have noticed I got items marked with a little white icon in some boss battles? Those are all items Hugo buys.  Satomi: “You! You want to volunteer for my experiment, right? Now I can finally conduct my experiment about death and spirits!“ “What’s a volunteer?”Satomi: “A foolish…I mean, important person who participates in this experiment to get close to god. Enter the machine, please! A 5000 degree flame will turn you into a spirit in no time!” “No way! I won’t do it!”Satomi: “Oh, I know! You came here to try your hand at my pop-quiz, right?” “Quiz?”Satomi: I’ll give you a total of ten questions! If you answer them all correctly, you win!” Obviously Satomi proceeds to give you a little test based on random trivia from the game. They’re completely randomized, so you can be sure to get the same questions every time. There’s more than 10 possible questions, but you’ll only get 10 to answer. These ones are fairly easy if you’ve been paying attention, and they’re all multiple choice.  Satomi: “You must be an adventurer, too! You might find this item handy!” She says “item” singular but gives us 7 total: 5 camping kits, 1 Flag of Retreat (for escaping battle instantly), and 1 Hell’s Path (which increases monster encounter rates temporarily). We also get the “Adventurer?” title, as if the game isn’t entirely sure you’ve earned it yet. We leave Hugo and Satomi and go to a large building on the other side of Tanza.  This restaurant doesn’t teach any recipes, but eating all the options earns Lang the “Exotica” title. Our final destination in Tanza is actually the first building on the left from the entrance.  This kid sells the tea cakes we were asked to buy for the guild quest. We can buy more whenever we want, but they’re just HP restoring consumables, and they’re the worst by far. The first healing items you get, Heal Powders, heal 200 damage, whereas Tanza Tea Cakes heal 120. What is it with this game and worthless consumables?  If you give this thing 1000 gold, apparently it can occasionally give you a “Restore Potion”. It never happened for me, and while Restore Potions are useful (full healing for one character), we don’t need them now.  Ah, the staple of any anime media: the hot spring. Using the hot spring in this game doesn’t give any material benefit, but it’ll eventually be home to a scene…you know what kind I mean.  Entering the hot springs right now is pretty boring. The dude just tells Lang to stop moving around, the sign just narrates the hot spring’s history, and the plate doesn’t do anything at all.  No peeking allowed….yet. Now of course there are actual entrances to the springs we could try to enter rather than talking to Goichi. What happens then?  Try the ladies’ door twice and Lang gets the “Peeper” nickname. Trying the mens’ door just has Goichi tell you he won’t let you in for free. We’re finally done with Tanza, so let’s move on. A short trip back to Kravia’s guild reveals…  “Ung…Stiel…He strong! But Balzac have more muscle!” “What good is that? You big, muscle-bound idiot!” Remember, kids, it’s always funny when a woman abuses a man. “If you’ve got time to be pumping up those useless muscles, why aren’t you FIGHTING?” “Wha-? My muscles is hard like steel! They make me invisible!...Um, no, I mean, invincible!”They notice Lang behind them.  “Not the kind of quests good enough for OUR skills, that’s for sure! Come on, Balzac! Let’s go!”And then they leave. Phanta and Balzac are recurring characters in the guild quests. They’ll often show up to either pose some challenge and/or act completely inept. We’ll be seeing more of them for sure. We head back to Nohl briefly.  Were you wondering who the third and final tier of the side jumping minigame was? No? Well it’s Dein. Bitchass Dein blew off Vigilance Corps work to learn how to side jump real good. Dein will not only side jump way more than Balzac, but when it seems like you’ll beat him…  He suddenly speeds up and does much better.  Button mashing alone doesn’t cut it for me this time. I can get close, but I can’t beat him. Anyone online insists it’s easy, but either I suck, or playing with a keyboard is making this impossible. Either way, I’m not going to bother beating this minigame. He gives you an endgame item, but I don’t care. ”Congratulations, Dein. You won.”Dein: ”Yeah! In your face, BITCH!” ”I’m glad you’re so content to be the victor of this pointless minigame. Now I’m going to take my millions of gold and godlike powers and go save the world, mmkay?”Dein: ”You….you’re just jealous of my crab leg swagger!” I will leave things here for now. I’ve already stuffed a lot of content into this update, and there’s still more to be seen. At this point, side content will probably take up more updates than the plot, which is pretty lean, as some of you already know. Join me next time, where we do more side stuff and maybe, just maybe, we go to Darek’s Haunt where the pirates are.
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May 4, 2021 09:05
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